Yesterday I was in a discussion exploring the nature of ‘Happiness’ where we were looking at all the various dimensions of this word and how it is currently existing on this planet.
The aspect of Happiness that I want to open up here in this blog is the relationship of Happiness to Money.
Initially for me connecting money to happiness was a kind of faux pax. Throughout my life I was introduced to and developed more of a ‘zen’ style or naturalistic way of looking at the world. Where happiness was not related to money or material things but was an ‘inner dimension’ so to speak. And I can see how this understanding of what happiness is is very common where most everyone has herd of this definition of happiness not being about material things or money and even the rich can be herd speaking versions of this idea as well and so there seems to be in this world a general awareness of this point that Happiness as not connected to money or material things. However what I see happened for me within accepting this definition of happiness is that I was not looking at happiness in a practical way. I ended up more forging a part of my EGO with this idea that happiness is not related to money or material things and then thus was not considering anything outside of this idea that I accepted and so when I was introduced to the concept that Happiness IS in fact in a direct relationship with money I kind of short circuited, I was unable to actually embrace such a concept. I resisted it, and what I also did is I went into ASSUMPTION! I assumed somewhere that this concept was flawed, was incorrect, or even so was OPPOSED to my more zen-like, naturalistic approach to life and living. So this is one dimension that Id like to bring some awareness to. The way in which we will react or resist new or alternative concepts that we are introduced to or hear about that oppose our own, though a crucial reason we do resist such differing concepts is because our approach to considering them is very very very very very short sighted and actually more aligned with NOT considering them at all but more just holding on to ASSUMPTIONS that immediately arise within our minds when introduced to them, about how they are flawed or wrong as they do not match our own versions that we have accepted.
I grew up very close to nature, and so to accept the idea that Happiness was linked to Money to me was like the antithesis of who I was. I just could not accept such a truth. What I have found though is that I was stubborn. I never in fact allowed myself to investigate or research and understand what is actually meant by this idea that Money is linked to Happiness and what I found in actually allowing myself to investigate this idea for real is that it in fact was a more zen-like, naturalistic view than I was holding onto within myself.
I think my initial reactions to such a point that Money and Happiness are joined at the hip was that it did somehow seem very unnatural and that my version of happiness I defined as more natural and more pure and more holistic, and more correct, and more aligned with LIFE. And that MONEY was evil, money was systematic, money was NOT natural and all these things.
And so I resisted this idea that money and happiness could be related because in a way I did not want to dirty myself, I did not want to toxify myself, corrupt myself, stain myself which is what I assumed would be the case by allowing MONEY to be a part of my definition of what happiness is. So Again I must bring up the point of Assuming and Assumptions here because this was what I was doing. I had not in fact really heard or allowed myself to investigate this new idea that was being presented to me that Money and Happiness is in fact related. I jumped to conclusions and so did not actually see or hear what is actually meant by money and happiness being related.
What I found in allowing myself to really consider and investigate this relationship of Money and Happiness is that I did not lose my initial definition that I had, but that rather I expanded it. I added to it, refined it, and in fact I was able to achieve an understanding of what Happiness means that is much more zen-like and naturalistic than my apparently already zen-like, naturalistic model of what I had defined and believed happiness to be.
So I would suggest that if you have any reactions to the idea that Money and Happiness are in fact related to each other. Id suggest to take a breath, and not jump to conclusions about what this in fact entail.
In my next blog I will go into more detail on what I have come to understand about the relationship between Money and Happiness and how I have come to see that this relationship is as natural as say watering a plant.
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