Making Peace with Money - Day 59 of 365 Days to a Better You

Money, money, money

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

~Khalil Gibran

You may not have heard. There IS enough for everyone on this planet. I love the Jessie J song titled Price Tag (embedded below). We live in a culture obsessed with money and the things money can buy. Many of us define ourselves by our economic status in relation to others. It's created massive dysfunction around money. Let's see if we can find some ways to improve our relationship with it.Money and things aren't inherently bad. There's nothing wrong with having them and living a comfortable life. Money buys choices. Money buys security. Money, as the Beatles pointed out, "Can't buy me love." Ha!We can debate whether our culture ought to be set up the way it is. It's a completely fair, and I'd argue, needed debate. Yet, when we wake up tomorrow morning, we're still living in this world. not the better one we might create one day. How do we cope and thrive without becoming greedy b@st@rds?Here are a few thoughts and myths about healthy and unhealthy money mindsets. I'll admit. I'm struggling with some of these as much as the anyone else, but that's what 365 Days to a Better You (and me) is all about.

1. Be at peace with money. You can't expect money to flow into your life and be at peace with you, while you're at war with it. It's nothing more than a resource, an exchange of value. Making it more than that is a big mistake. Oh, and you're worth it and deserve to have an abundant life.
2. There IS enough for everyone. Despite what you hear all day, every day in the media. There is enough to go around. We don't have a resource shortage. What we really have is a shortage of sharing.
3. Scarcity is a mindset not reality. This one flows from the first one. The conditioned belief that there's not enough creates a scarcity mindset. Scarcity scares us and it's constantly used against. We live in an abundant world and an abundant universe fully capable of meeting any need any of us could ever have.
4. I can't make money doing what I love. Myth, myth, myth. It's nothing more than a conditioned belief that the only way to earn a living is working for someone else. Doing what you love can pay the bills just as well as a job. Figure out how.
5. Wealth is evil. Wealth is not inherently evil. It can become evil without awareness. There is nothing more noble about being poor. Conscious wealth is a worthy goal. Conscious poverty or unconscious wealth benefit no one, but wealth created and consciously used benefits the world.
6. When you have, give. When you attain a level of wealth and comfort, share it liberally. None of us really owns anything. We just possess it for a moment in cosmic terms. Why not spread the wealth?
7. The really important things don't have a price. This brings us to the Jessie J song. We live in a culture where it sometimes feels like everything has a price. Birth, death, healthcare, education, love, integrity. Be the kind of person who puts principle before money. Live without a price tag.

[embed width="123" height="456"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI[/embed]Power hack: Have things, yes, but don't let things have you. Give up the notion that you have to nobly poor and struggling. Give up the notion that money means you've made it, if you haven't learned the lessons of gratitude and generosity.Follow your bliss. Experience your bliss. Become your bliss.RayPlease checkout the growing quotes library on the TAS website.