What is enough?
We want more, our desires are endless though ultimately self-defeating as the childhood saying goes, “Your eyes are bigger than your belly,” as anyone who has tried to defeat a chocolate fountain has found out, you can have too much. Whilst we can recognise what is gluttony, the spectrum between enough and harming ourselves is huge, just one more bite can lead to the consumption of a whole chocolate cake when one slice would have been the perfect amount. Even the pursuit of excess is less than optimal when you consider the opportunity cost of what you could have been doing instead, what is the point of working overtime, weekends and every holiday if you already have enough money?
It is easy to see that eating too much is bad for you as your belly will tell you quickly and the scale will let you know in the long run, we can only eat what the body uses or it does us harm and most people reading this article will have access to more calories than they can use, it is a resource where enough is clearly visible. The same does not apply to money, it does not directly harm us, as money is not a physical thing, it does not have an effect in the world, it is not even real except because we all act like it is real, it is a means of exchange whilst having no real valve in itself, which is also it's advantage, gold had uses as a metal for jewellery, rust proofing, that distorts it's price, changing it's relative value. Money is neutral and yet we pursue it like it is better than gold, and there is no harm in having too much of it, except if you are giving up something that is more important.
If someone offered you ten pounds for your kidney, most people would refuse, a thousand pounds and some would say yes, ten, hundred thousands, at some point almost everyone would say yes, even if it was to give it to charity, there is a point at which the amount of good you could do would clearly outweigh the good a kidney was doing for you. However you can change the maths, is the answer the same for your nose, hand, liver or even your life, there are people who risk and sell their lives cheaply for their families and if you are not one of them be grateful and consider whether you actually have enough money already. If you do not have to trade your life for money because you have enough, you are in an incredible position and one that not many people have ever experienced, to have abundance instead of scarcity means you have eliminated the negative of fearfulness.
However in a less extreme example, every time you go to work, you are giving up a small slice of life for money, just eight hours, you barely notice it in the grand scheme of things, a fair trade, a hard day's work for a fair day's pay, it is seems noble and necessary, being able to do so is a source of pride and mark of a good provider. Though it is the same trade your life for money, and if you have not got money it is life changing, it gives you shelter, drink, food, clothes, you can swop it for any necessity and a few luxuries that give you pleasure, chocolate cakes do not grow on trees after all. Money is very good at getting rid of negatives especially the fear of scarcity and living without fear means we are able to do more and operate from a place of love and higher action.
Once it was the dream of economists that when the necessities were paid for, people could work less and enjoy time to do other things, and yet that has not happened, we did not work less, we work more especially in the high status jobs, bankers work over a hundred hours a week now (not that many people feel sorry for them!) Which defies logic as the job could be split into two high quality jobs except that people blindly want more money and it is better for companies to overwork a single super productive person rather than two merely productive people, you do not want your highest earning employees only working half the time.
We let the companies get away with this because we can be brought, they just pay us more and we are happy, and that is because we value that money, we want it and if you ask banker why, they will look at you blankly, it is a given that more is better with no exceptions, it is the trap of the ego game of having more than the other person. Maybe it is also because they have had no time to consider the alternatives or run experiments on what actually makes them happy, when you are working a hundred hours, there is not time for an examined life, to reflect on why you need all that money and what it is for.
There are good uses for money beyond the necessities, you can buy your home, some luxury is nice (though my greatest luxury is the time to walk, meditate, write, drink coffee, read, none of which costs that much money to do), what money is really good at is buying assets, and productive assets give you an income so that you do not have to trade your time for money. Every other purchase requires money, assets are the only one that gives you money to buy time and time is limited, buying years of your life back is the greatest thing I can imagine, and to be clear there are only two things you can do with money spend it now or spend it later, and assets are simply a better way to spend it later rather than just putting it in a bank as cash and spending that.
Assets give you a source of income that is independent of your ability to trade your time for money, that is why people save for their retirement for when they will not be able to work and indirectly you are buying assets for that purpose through a retirement fund. However it is worth asking the question how much is enough money to provide for your retirement and even more importantly how much is enough for your current lifestyle and it is probably less than you think if you examined what actually makes you happy. Walking is virtually free and I know no one who has regretted going for a walk, no matter how much they did not feel like it beforehand, and virtually everyone feels better afterwards, that is real joy.
That is why it is worth asking what is enough? You only have so many hours in the day, it is worth experimenting with what makes you happy and how much does it cost? That way you can decide how much is necessary to give you a life that makes you happy in your normal everyday, especially those hours that so many people spend working for income rather than working on projects that make us happy, that are in alignment with our values, purpose and are meaningful to us. That is the freedom that asset give us and you do not have to wait for retirement to enjoy that way of life if you know how much is enough.
