I had promised to send out some financial tips towards tax time, starting this week. I have found that using other concepts and frameworks and relating them to financial literacy can be very helpful when I teach, so here goes for this week:
In the past I have written about 2nd chakra and the relationship between sex and money. In this email, the quote from Myss from the same chapter follows our last theme of financial power,
‘money is a form of second chakra energy or power,
the desire for personal power….Power is a manifestation of the life force.
For all of us the challenge is to achieve sufficient internal strength
to interact comfortably with physical power without
negotiating away our spirits.’ (p 160-161)
Do you remember the feeling of getting your very first official paycheque? The kind with mysterious deductions and taxes taken off? How proud and important that financial moment was in your life? What were you saving towards, what were your short term goals, did you have a budget?
During our lifetimes we can focus on either side of the money power conversation: what goes out or what comes in. Usually people focus on what comes in^^ like the paycheque. We save and we budget and we plan. Financial Planning 101: spend less than you earn. This is the first mantra of all financial plans.
Interestingly, these precepts are from my sustainability textbook: Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows:
- As long as the sum of all inflows exceed the sum of all outflows, the stock will rise.
- The human mind seems to focus more easily on stocks than on flows.
- When we do focus on flows, we tend to focus on inflows, more easily than outflows. (p. 22)
One way to radically change the system you have with money (whether it is a conscious, hyper aware and cautious system or a completely spending based and free flow system) Is to address your OUTFLOWS. Imagine that your daily spending was like small holes in a boat. They may be fine for awhile, but left unattended, your boat will sink eventually. The focus of this email isn’t to put anyone on a strict spending diet: far from it. Using the idea of essentialism, spend big! BUT ONLY ON WHAT MATTERS MOST. As Greg McKeown states:
Essentialism is about creating a system for handling the closet of our lives. This is not a process you undertake once a year, once a month, or even once a week, like organizing your closet. It is a discipline you apply each and every time you are faced with a decision. Its about learning how to do less but better so you can achieve the highest possible return on every precious moment of your life. ( p. 19)
So remember back to the reason you got that first job, and started saving that first paycheque? I remember mine and my “why” was ALWAYS concert tickets. I am a huge fan of live music, and I worked paycheque to paycheque saving for concert after concert. Was that a good decision or a bad decision? Whose business is that anyway? It was my “why”, which is how I exercised my financial power: to be a part of something that I was so passionate about. And the rest of our life should be like that, too.
(image wikipedia: lollapalooza)
Questions for self reflection:
1. What are your “concerts” (why’s?) right now?
2. The next time you make a purchase, can you remember to ask yourself: “does this expense get me closer to my “concert”(why)?
3. The next time you make any financial decision or choice, contemplate: ” does this expenditure make me feel as though I am exercising my power without compromising my spirit”?
Myss, Caroline. (1996) Anatomy of the Spirit. Random House, New York, NY.
Meadows, Donella (2008) Thinking in Systems: A Primer. ChelseaGreen, White River Junction, VT.
McKeown, Greg. (2020) Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Random House, New York, NY.
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