A few days ago a young person in my family bought a new car. I heard about it on Facebook. When I saw the post I immediately began making judgments. It is ridiculous for a 19 year old to be tied to car payments for 5 or 6 years. She lacks the maturity to make such a commitment. How could her parents support such a decision?
I didn't like the way these judgments reflected on me. I had to really go inside these thoughts and see if they represented unmet needs in me. Guess what? They did.
I have struggled in my relationship with money for...oh...ever. I grew up with the attitude that money was intended to make us feel better. If you have money, spend it, you'll feel better.
Recently I have come to see that money represents energy and time. We have to give our time and energy to get money. In essence, when we spend money we are trading our time and energy for something else. When we purchase things on credit we are committing our future time and energy.
I want to be more conscious of how I spend my time and energy so I have to be more conscious of how I spend my money. In doing so, I am resisting not only my upbringing but so many messages that our capitalistic society dictates.
So when I see someone spending money in a way that may appear reckless to me, it is an opportunity to reaffirm my commitment to my new found relationship with money. Why don't I have a new car in the driveway? Because I choose not to.
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