You and Them: How is your relationship with money?

Are you satisfied with the amount of money you have per month? Salary, rent, or, as they used to say in Soviet times, unearned income? As my psychological practice shows, the majority answers this question with a resounding “no”. Why is that? Let’s figure it out.

…But you hold on

Many are convinced that for complete happiness they lack something small — a strictly defined amount, a beautiful number with the right number of zeros. It seems that if you had this amount at your disposal, you would wow! You would start fulfilling your desires tomorrow morning. And this really happens sometimes: as soon as extra zeros appear on the account, some begin to buy expensive clothes, others urgently change their car or housing, and still others go on a trip. It turns out that as soon as the majority suddenly has free money, it rushes headlong to get rid of them.

Why is this happening? Primarily due to anxiety. It is unbearably scary for a person to own a certain amount, it puts pressure on him. And as a result, he does everything to ensure that this amount: a) never appears; b) did not stay long.

There are reasons for this. One of them is a rather dramatic history of the country (or, as it is now fashionable to say, the background). A series of crises has given rise to generations of people who are terrified of rustling papers. Many of us are afraid to “just live” and not strain. Such people are nervous about the freedom that money gives. It is much more habitual to carry out calculations, to think in front of a shop window, to motivate yourself to work with a long ruble, than to “close your eyes and have fun.”

A friend of mine, who has about half a billion dollars, for which he honestly worked for many years, once called with a question: “Listen, old man, I am standing in a store, looking at a toaster. This bastard costs 150 euros. Take or not take? What do you think?» Be honest, do you know?

Goodbye money!

Do you know what drives us to impulsive purchases? The neurotransmitter dopamine. The scheme is simple: you bought what you wanted, there was a release of the mediator, and when you take a hypothetical toaster out of the store, you no longer experience the whining “I want”. Everything would be fine, but the effect is short-term, like with 100 g of vodka. You dream of another pair of shoes, and when it suddenly becomes yours, the dream bursts and again you need some kind of incentive for joy.

It’s also bad that such “pleasures” for many replace something really worthwhile: warmth, love, relationships, excitement and passion for work. A man plows like hell, and then rewards himself with some useless garbage. One of my friends only wears Prada, but for a year now she doesn’t want to and can’t change her leaking refrigerator.

Remember one simple thing: our relationship with money reflects our relationship with ourselves. Are you afraid of money? So you are afraid of life. This fear is expressed in different ways for everyone: one cannot approach the boss and ask for a pay rise. The other spends the advance he just received on nonsense in order to live “as usual” again and count pennies. The third cannot spend money at all, lives frankly poorly, putting everything off for a rainy day. It’s all the same: anxiety.

And take a love relationship! Many modern women, for example, are annoying if their partner earns less. They begin to drill into his brain with the same song: “Why do I have to pay for you forever ?!” «So don’t pay.» “But we are one family!” — «Then pay …» And so on in a circle.

You will be surprised, but you can relax once and for all and finally start getting the amount that suits you. But for this, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, «you need to work not 24 hours, but with your head.»

First, stop saving for tomorrow not only money, but life itself. Don’t be afraid to do what you want. Your fears are in most cases just a figment of your imagination, and each new worry gives rise to more and more nightmares and phobias.

Secondly, do not treat finances as a real life value. Do you seriously think that money is important? No. You and your happiness matter. Close people. Inspiration, love. There is no point in money, in any, even the most unthinkable amount, if you have to suffer because of it right now. Money should not make you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, eat junk food, or constantly compromise with yourself.

And thirdly — and this is the most important thing — learn to choose yourself already. Make your own decisions. Choose what is valuable for you. Are you a top manager who is crazy about ficuses? So finally become a happy gardener, and not a jerky financier. Believe me, you won’t regret it.