Is money the equivalent of desires? Yes, but not all

One day a man wanted something that he didn’t have, but someone else had. But this other did not want what he had. Therefore, it was not possible to exchange directly. I had to invent some kind of exchange equivalent. Pebbles, shells, gold, pieces of paper with numbers, numbers on an electronic screen… The appearance of money changes, but in any case, they embody our desire… And not always the desire to have a certain object.

Pass the tests

• How do you spend money?

Fulfillment of desires

And it is no longer so important what exactly we buy: a flight to the moon, a piece of bread or a Lamborghini for a mistress. In any case, we are not buying an object, but an opportunity to satisfy a need that has arisen.

The suffering we experience when we don’t get what we want is reflected in the saying “someone’s pearls are small, and some’s loaves are stale.” It is likely that the suffering is really about the same when you eat stale bread and when you look at your insufficiently large pearls.

Read more:

• How are you with money?

But the fulfillment of desires is temporary. The poor official, who dreams of “building” an overcoat, gets the object of his desires, but not for long. It is no coincidence that his overcoat was immediately taken away from him – Gogol shows the transience of this happiness that we experience when we find what we want.

We come into this world with a great need for love, affection, and a sense of worth. We strive to satisfy this need – including through a variety of acquisitions. But by buying what money can buy, we get neither love, nor affection, nor significance. The result is disappointment.

Sometimes we do not have to buy something, it is enough to be aware of the possibility: we have the idea that we can buy something, and this idea is enough for us.

And when there is no money, it is perceived as a lack of opportunity. And this leads many to a feeling of unfulfillment and to a state of humiliation.

Read more:

• Money: our gestures give us away

“My husband does not want to develop,” the client complains to me, and when I start to clarify and ask, she explains that he earns little. What she means is that money provides a variety of opportunities, and in the absence of money there is a condition, as if there is no longer much to afford. What a development! But it’s interesting that we set the “can’t afford” limit ourselves. Since there is no money, we cannot afford it. We do not even check, but maybe our desires can be fulfilled in another way?

Many also fall into another trap: when money is earned, the meaning of what it is for is lost. And then comes sadness. Because it seemed to us that it is worth earning money, as needs will be automatically satisfied, and opportunities will be realized. We will become significant, loved, and the world around us will become safe. Is it really? In the modern world, money gives many opportunities, and life with them becomes easier. But neither love, nor acceptance, nor significance, and often even security, they do not give. The inventor of the iPhone, Steve Jobs, died of pancreatic cancer.

Read more:

• Why attractive people earn more

Money is the equivalent of desire. But acquiring money, we understand that not all desires can be realized with their help. And then we are faced with a sense of loss.

It turns out that we are striving for a not very fair exchange: we want to receive love, giving only money for it.

Relationship expression

Money has a communicative meaning: it communicates the relationship of one person to another. You can express a lot with them. For example, I buy something that another person wants and give it to him. I say by this: “You are important to me.” But you can say something else, for example: “I’m in charge.” By not giving money to a teenager, we can say, “I’m mad at you.” Money can become the equivalent of sex: a wife refuses her husband, and then he does not give her money.

In the same way, with the help of money, we say something about ourselves, both to ourselves and to others. For example, “I have no money – I’m bad.” Or “I have no money – I am a highly spiritual being.”

There is also a contradictory attitude: “I have money, I’m cool. But in an honest way, money is not earned, which means that I am bad and sinful. In this case, a person earns crazy money, and then tries to get rid of them. In many ways: building churches, losing money in casinos, losing in risky ventures.

Pass the tests

• What does money mean to you?

Money is a magnifying mirror of the human personality. They make visible everything that is in a person.

Lack of money is also a message. And it also makes sense. Some have the feeling that there is not enough money, there is not enough for everyone, that this is a limited resource. It happens that the lack of money is a way to feel and show your belonging to a certain community, for example, to a family: “no one in our family had money.” And most often these processes are unconscious. To understand them, psychology has developed a method for studying attitudes towards money. It’s called the “money genogram”. By analyzing the family history, behavior, and beliefs of different family members, we can understand why one worships wealth while another despises it. Until these questions are answered, it is often difficult to understand why, for example, someone treats money as if they should be disposed of as quickly as possible.

Read more:

• “Do not be afraid!” with Anna Arkatova: Don’t be afraid of money

Security need

There is another saying – “better take money from me.” That is, if you could choose trouble, then losing money is the least of them. Nevertheless, many are afraid of being left without money. But, of course, this fear is not about the numbers on the account, but about the feeling of security. It is our basic need to feel secure. In our country, almost all of us grew up in a situation of endless crisis, so we have anxiety about the present and the future. And when there is money, there is an illusion that there is something to rely on. This is just an illusion. Everyone who survived the 90s remembers how the savings accumulated over the years turned into nothing. But we need this illusion, we are calmer with it.

Luckily, money isn’t the only thing that can make you feel more confident. There is also family, relatives, friends. Look at what is happening around now – many people have stopped worrying about a career that they were preoccupied with until recently, and turned to friendships. We are looking for support.

Read more:

• Money treats us the same way we treat them.