The Love of Money - 2/19/09

[Tomwalked]

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ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!

I have such a knee-jerkish "problem" with this topic...
and typical for me... I'm gonna attempt to work it out here and now... in the public forum... inflicting my (runaway?) train of thought on this entire list...
(no wonder brits think americans are obnoxious?)



Here is the basis of my unctuous turmoil -
in my mind, Unconditional Love, is reserved for people.
not items, stuff, material...
(from the show) how can one unconditionally love paint, shovels, diamonds, horse-patties, and nail polish?

and as I say that I am aware that I need to look at...
the LOVE that I have for my pet,
the trees and plants on my morning walk,
and my morning walk.

if money is a tool;
AND money is energy.
(Shovel is energy?)
I don't love shovels.
I appreciate a good shovel (for the tool it is) - for it's value and its usefulness...
but, I could never love a shovel unconditionally - not to be a cold-hearted bastard here, but if the shovel-handle breaks... I kicking it to the curb! throwing it out like yesterdays news.
(I feel dirty - I'm realizing what a USER I am)


so the definition given on the show is this:
Unconditional Love
"There is nothing you can do that will make god Love you any less;
and nothing you can do that will make god love you any more."
- Philip Yancey


so, there is this passage from the show (quoting Michael):
<><><><><><><>
If you apply the conditional/unconditional love distinction towards money...
what you quickly start to see, is that if you make your love of money unconditional...
that means you're not going to feel any better or worse regardless of how much or how little of it you have.
Your well-being is disconnected from your bank balance... so money is no more or less than a practical tool, that you can use to create more of what you want in your life, and more of what you want in the world.
so from that point of view... loving money unconditionally, there is absolutely nothing you could find that is remotely evil or even bad in that.
But here is what happens if you try to love money conditionally, so what that means is...
"I promise to be happy if and only if money does what I want it to do"
that puts me at the mercy and my life at the mercy of things like the credit crunch and inflation (etc)
if you try to love conditionally then you will feel the victim of money.

if you can love money unconditionally, and nothing can make you feel better about it or worse about it... it is just a tool... then money gets back to it's actual utility and it gets a lot easier to see what to do and not do around money.
<><><><>end paraphrased quote


I don't love the shovel.
I very much appreciate that the shovel makes the hole easier to dig.
I have dug holes with my hands and it is tiring and sometimes painful.

in linguistics - the word is not the thing.
the word "shovel" is not a shovel.
(don't know if I'm gonna be able to get this across)
I don't appreciate the shovel as much as the action of shoveling.
and maybe that is the key.
money - the tool - is the shovel.
money - the energy - is shoveling.





and all that being said...
not sure I can love shovels...
I can deeply appreciate them...
but this week I promise to go out on a date or two with shovels...
To explore my feelings for shovels a little more deeply.




.....since I am working this out, I would greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate comments...








ps. I heart Business-Robot




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[Tomwalked]

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I guess I want to say this too.


there is without a doubt some residual "root of all evil" belief in me that makes it hard for with just the statement

"The love of money"

it is difficult for me to attempt to say that "I love money".
and now I have to consider saying "I love money unconditionally"
e-gads



anyway...
not sure they are gonna let me into the movie theater with a shovel, but... I'll keep ya posted.




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[C]

Hi Tom

I've been thinking about inanimate objects such as your favourite shovel or a spoon or fork as I prefer to think of it.

Every day you will use your spoon or fork to eat or stir your coffee etc. You don't need it to tell you how good you look in the morning or listen to how the knife was poking it in the cutlery drawer - all you need it for is to help you eat and in return you wash it after use. Ok so maybe you're a bit heartless and will throw it away if it gets bent out of shape but will you agonise over it's loss or go into a depresssion because it had to go to the great cutlery drawer in the sky (the local landfill)? No, you'll just go out the store, buy a new one and continue as before.

Don't put conditions on your money - just use it and if a note rips, go the bank and ask for a new one.

I hope this helps with your shovel - if not, perhaps you and the shovel could go for couples counselling?!

C x

[Tomwalked]

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HA!!

thank you so much for that reply. so wonderful!

now I am looking around at all of the useful tools I use daily and realizing how... suddenly may dating life has really taken off.
(I think I am gonna put aside a whole weekend Island getaway - for coffee)
(btw... my fork is a complete trollop!!! laying there in the drawer... for anyone to use!!!)


>  Don't put conditions on your money -
>  just use it and if a note rips, go the
>  bank and ask for a new one.

Perfect!
and I think it was what I was working toward and processing in my post (and still am mulling around).
You just put it so succinctly!
and I think this is the part that most clearly resonates with me.




so... and this all just maybe a matter of semantics... but...
In the new example...
If... I loved my fork and had to throw it away... I just might go into depression, and agonize over it's loss...
I guess the whole thing I am having an issue around is...
If I love my fork conditionally or unconditionally... I will still be very hurt by losing it.
so, to me, I guess it ALL comes back to... the issue is the LOVE of fork.
not whether that love is conditional or unconditional.




even my appreciations and use of the fork is conditional.
if it gets bent... I throw it away.
those are the conditions of our relationship.


am I missing something?





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[C]

Hi again

This will probably be quite controversial but I don't love money!  I've been thinking about it since my last post and maybe it's because my father worked in accountancy or my mathematical bent but to me, for the main part, money is just numbers. So therefore I think of money just like the fork, spoon, shovel or whatever as useful tools and just use them and dump them when a better model comes along (I do however have favourite pieces of cutlery - does that make me odd?).

I do have emotional issues surrounding money however but realised last year that these were actually more around asking for help and/or the specific people that I needed to communicate with in order to get the money.

Good luck with your 'dating'!

C xx

[Tomwalked]

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I appreciate your honesty!!!

so, I think we are in the same boat...

but now the self-question we need to face....

if we don't LOVE money...
what is our relationship with it...

Hate?
dis-like?
friendly acquaintances?
the guy we see frequently on the daily elevator ride up... but have no clue what his name is?

 or as you say...
the cavalier user of the tool.





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[southnick]

Hi Tom
I'm really pleased you posted this because I listened to the program and didn't get it either.
This is coming from someone who has listened to every program in the archive and loves Michel's approach.

I have thought about this long and hard because I have found that when I don't don't initially get something there is often something very interesting to be learned.

I think the reason I have a problem with loving money and shovels is partly because I was was bought up a catholic (now recovering) and "love" was a very strange and special thing reserved for God and family.It did later move to pets, friends, guitars and partners, but that was later.

Rather than approaching the thing head on I decided to play with it.

What if I do it the other way round and consider my relationship to inanimate objects depending on how many of them I have and how easy they are to obtain.

I have a spade (an English shovel) in the garden shed, I know it is there because I looked, but it doesn't really matter until I need a hole. If I needed lots of holes then I might consider getting another one, or a better one, but at the moment I am OK for spades.
I just want to be able to dig a hole when I get a plant for the garden.
How would my relationship to it change if spades were really cheap, or really expensive and hard to get?
If I didn't have one and they became really scarce then I might start to add a little emotion into the pot, worrying that if I needed a hole I wouldn't be able to get one. I might then search for one and buy it, even if I didn't need a hole at the time just to feel safe. Hmm, now that sounds a bit like money.
I might decide that although I have a friend who will always lend me a spade I want my own to be in control. That sounds a bit like money too. Not sure my friends are impressed by spades but I guess I might buy one for that reason too if they were a cool thing to have.

This got me thinking about CDs. There was a time when I would go in a record shop and buy CDs, some I would like and play all the time, others would just sit there, but I kept them as I had paid for them and so they stayed,even though I only ever play about a quarter of the CDs I own.
I then discovered that I could listen to any practically any CD ever made for very little money (e.g. spotify.com) on the internet. Suddenly all the CDs that I had wanted were available, and I found I actually didn't want most of them after all. Once I knew I could have whatever I wanted, I chose things because they were great to listen too, not just because I wanted to own them.

And I think this is where I ended up, once I know I can have all I want when ever I want it, I don't need to get stuff to make me feel safe, to make me feel in control or to impress other people. I just want it because it gives me pleasure, helps me learn or improves my life in some other way.

So, I would like to have a flat in Paris, if that's OK with the universe, but not for the sake of having it, just because it will be cool to walk downstairs to get a coffee and a fresh croissant in a cafe.

To summarise. Would I want a thing any more or any less if it was incredibly expensive, or if they were free? Answering this question about lots of things has given me some great shifts.

Not quite the point Michael was making but it gets me to a very similar place.

[Tomwalked]

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Thank you South Nick.
(do I call you Nick?)

quick question...
if a spade is a english shovel...
how is an English hole different than an American hole?

(I will use this as my zen koan when next I need one)


I appreciate your insights...
great points...

I was pondering this morning on my morning workout...
the question of "the love of shovels"
and listening to the past episode "Money Stuff" (17 may 07)
(sidebar - want to see a tremendous example of equanimity? listen to Michael's lengthy response to a caller - about 3/4 through the show - wonderful!)

I thought of this...
If I were a Hole digger by trade, and I used a shovel daily.. I would have a very different "relationship" with my shovel.

I think this is in part what you were saying.



and to attempt another chipping away at the original question...
ie... Conditional/Unconditional Love of money.

I want to see how money affects me... my happiness, my well being, and ultimately my love for myself... is unconditional.
(I wonder if I am saying this well)
Another words, the love for myself, my well being, etc... is not depended upon money. or shovels. That love is without conditions of economics, buying power etc...

and somehow that self-referencing loop comes back and "changes" my relationship with money.

I-da-know... still mulling it about.



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[southnick]

Hi Tom,

I just looked up shovel and it seems I may have misled you. A shovel is curved to make it easier to lift earth. A spade is flat.
I don't have a shovel, I don't feel I need one at the moment. Am I missing out here?
We don't have much space in England so our yards (or gardens as we call  them) are pretty small, so we don't have a lot of earth to move. Perhaps that is why we have spades.

The relationship with tools is interesting. I have a few tools for doing jobs around the house, a saw, a drill, a few chisels and a few other things. I keep them dry and protect their sharp edges so they won't rust or blunt.
I recently had a builder do some work for me and he left his tools all over the place with little concern for protecting them. The saw was left out in the rain and his chisels were thrown in the box without the little plastic protectors. The work was OK but if I had seen the way he treated his tools beforehand I might have been less happy about employing him.
The main tools of my trade are computers and books. I don't look after them as well as I might, leave books lying open after reading them, let my computers get dusty, so perhaps you get jaded after a while?

When you are lying on your death bed, many years in the future. You won't think, wow I certainly managed to accumulate loads of shovels, but you might just say " I had a great life, digging holes, planting things, watching them grow and then sharing them with the people I love (unconditionally of course) was a wonderful way to spend my life.


Nick in sunny Southampton, UK

[southnick]

I was unable to find the show you mention, "Money Stuff" (17 may 07), in the solutions cafe archive. Can you check the details for me please.

Thanks

[Tomwalked]

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Nick

Details are accurate...
the show is available through the Hay House Radio archive for "wisdom community" members.

( www.hayhouseradio.com/ )





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[southnick]

Thanks Tom. The solutions cafe has most of the shows but not this one.
Fortunately I still had a copy from when I downloaded direct from Hayhouse.

It was well worth it to listen to the section that you highlighted. The skill of a really great coach not to be drawn into the clients state in this sort of situation. Michael does an amazing job. I hope the lady was able to use this experience to get some perspective on the situation with here children.