Do you own your money, or does your money own you?
On returning home with some groceries this weekend, Ruth shared with me how she bumped into to some acquaintances in the high street who were obviously starting to get stressed with the unnecessary baggage that goes with the run up to Christmas.
This tension often comes from a sense of wanting to fulfil other people’s expectations, so that we feel we have to be more than we are; be more financially, be more as an organiser, or even be more as a cook!
Anyway, Sunday is a good time to reflect on the week that’s past and the week that lies ahead so I wanted to share a thought with you in the run up to Christmas, and all the unnecessary baggage that comes with it, that was taught me one Christmas as a teenager in a foreign land…
The country in question had seen much civil unrest and had just stopped short of civil war, though armed violence was still rife.
It was a nation of extreme wealth and extreme poverty and seeing the two extremes coexist so close together blew my mind.
It was my first Christmas away from home. A home where we all came together for Christmas, but this time I was spending it with people who had been through so much trauma, and were enduring so much material poverty, yet at the same time, by the way they lived their lives in the face of oppression, these were some of the most richest people I had ever met. It was my first Christmas through different eyes.
The exposure caused me to struggle with the very real issues of justice/injustice, and of my own financial ‘wealth’ in a guilty way, as a comparative millionaire in the presence of so much material poverty.
I shared this struggle with one of the Community’s Elders, Abe.
I’ve never forgotten Abe’s counsel in response after opening up to him:
“Stephen, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, what matters is…do you own your money, or does your money own you?”
If you own your money, you control it, you hold it, and you can give it away. If your money owns you, it controls you, it holds you and you can’t give it away.”
It was wise words to a young man setting out in life; it’s not how much or how little money I had, but rather my attitude toward it that ultimately mattered.
And this principle of control, and of being able to release/let go, or conversely of being held/controlled, doesn’t doesn’t just apply to money either.
So this weekend, as we take take to reflect, maybe we can all stop and ask ourselves, what are the things controlling us that we need to retake control of, things that maybe we need to give away or simply let go of?
Do you own it, or does it own you?