“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time.
You will be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living. That is, to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid.
Better to have a short life, that is full of what you like doing, than a long life that is spent in a miserable way." ~ Alan Watts
Hearing that hit me hard the first time, because it was how I lived for a long time. Like watching the opening scene of The Lego Movie, it's a direct challenge to my idiotic ways of living. Go local sports team!
In Roman times the phrase used was "Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia" ~ the Root of all Evil is Greed. Avarice comes from the Latin root avarus: which means "to crave". So, it doesn't have to be greed as in the sense of money, it can be craving anything really. When I want more, I am no longer in the mindset of love and am in a position to do something to harm someone else ~ "evil".
Craving is the desire for more, which appears to be the main "fault" in our collective human condition. Whenever we desire or crave more we are willing to do things which put us at odds with other humans, who also desire and crave more. In the case of things for survival, such as food and water, people will kill. In the case of things not needed for survival, such as $100 tennis shoes, people will kill.
When I want something at the expense of another person, then love is not present. So, when looking out at America in 2015, there is little love to be seen. That's not a judgment of us all, myself included, we have all just bought into this myth and delusion that we need more. We are sold fear in order to drive our behavior to get more. We are told we are not good enough as we are in this moment, so need material things to feel better, feel safe, feel secure.
When we are living in fear of not having enough, then we go out and seek more to relieve that fear. But, the fear never leaves by piling more on top of it. Once we have more, we then become afraid of losing it and now need to protect it. It's a fools game and I bought in for sure. Get more and more and more and hoard it then make sure no one takes it from me. It's like watching 4 year-olds play with toys and we live this way as adults, then of course teach our children to "share" and play nice, while we do nothing of the sorts because we are grown up.
In 36 years of life, I do not believe I have ever been in a place or time where I would have needed to kill someone for my survival. So, I have always had everything I have needed at all times. Yet, for most of my "thinking life" I have thought I needed more of everything to survive, thrive, be "safe", be successful, be good enough, be likeable, be dating material, be a good parent or whatever else I listened too.
How many rolls of toilet paper can I use at once, how many shirts can I wear at once, how many houses can I live in at once, how many cars can I drive at once... The answer is always 1. I can't use two things at once, or 48 rolls of toilet paper either. Why do I feel better having more, because I am afraid of not having enough in the future, that's the only answer. It always comes back to Fear.
So, being in the process of moving homes, I am examining my personal attachment to things and questioning how I got all this worthless shit in my house. Right now, all of it is creating some form of stress trying to figure out whether to sell it, how to sell it, what to charge, having to communicate with people who want to buy it... then should I keep it and move it, maybe I need it, then how will I move it, when is the time to pack it, do I need to hire and pay movers or do it myself... or should I throw it all in a dumpster, is that wasting, could someone else it... It's fucking madness and it's just stuff.
This is not how I want to spend my limited time on this planet, managing stuff I can't take with me when I'm dead. I'd rather be playing with my kids, meditating, helping someone, walking the dog, creatively writing or anything else. I haven't written a blog in a long time because I'm trying to decide whether I need 100 towels or I can survive with 2 sets. Frankly, I'm losing my mind over all of this non-sense of stuff.
And that's just the current example of the insanity that money and stuff is creating in my life. Add in years of failed businesses, being bankrupt ~ as in filing Chapter 7, losing my personal home and multiple vehicles, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash, losing other peoples cash, ruining friendships, going through a divorce, being sued by all kinds of banks, owing the IRS money and piles of non-sense all driven by the desire and false belief I needed more.
Instead of buying safety I found that Money bought me Misery. Well, not money as it is an inanimate object that is given made up meaning. The constant chasing, striving, seeking, battling, fearing, stressing and doing shit I did not want to do bought me misery. It was all stupid and waste of my time on this planet. Why do all of that crap I didn't like everyday, simply to be able to afford to get the same suffering the next day, until one day I'm dead and none of it mattered. There is no award at the time of death for "Suffered the Best" or "Best Effort at the American Dream".
There is only right now, and 95% of my moments in this life had been unhappy, fearful, stressful or otherwise unsatisfactory. Why? As Jim Rohn likes to say ~ "I bought the wrong plan". I bought the fear and false mantra that I am not enough and need more.
They say Money Cannot Buy Happiness, and to some extent that is true, but it can buy survival and the base levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid though:
Once we have our physiological needs met, we can sustain life for a given period of time. If we have no water or food, we are obviously not concerned about our self-actualization because being dead makes that difficult. So, normally we start at the bottom and work our way up the pyramid.
But what about monks, priests, nuns and people like Gandhi and Mother Theresa? They seemed to survive and thrive just fine without having to go make more money. How come? Well, they don't have ego and are willing to help without expecting in return. They are also willing to ask for others to help them meet their basic needs. Then magically people help them, give them food, give them shelter, give them their basic needs. Those people act in love and the universe keeps them alive with love. It's all very simple. They let go of their egos and fear of not having enough or needing more.
I've spent years meditating, contemplating, studying and trying to figure out how to not be attached to the desire to want more... More money, more stuff, more power, more everything.
How much food do I need in my house to feel like I have enough to survive? How much money do I need in my savings to feel like I have enough to survive? How many pair of clothes or shoes do I need to feel like I have enough to survive? It's an endless list of questions and the answer is always ~ I have more than enough in this moment to survive. I don't need millions of dollars to be alive right now, to breathe right now, to feed myself today, to clothe myself today or make it through any part of the day.
Yet, I have been willing to basically waste my life, day after day, year after year, trying to get more money, to buy more things I don't need, all simply trying to quench some fear that I will not be able to survive for some time in the future. It's absolutely ludicrous when looking at the facts of my existence, again ~ I have never been in a position where I was without something I absolutely needed to survive in that moment.
I have always had enough air, food, water, shelter, clothing and by and large sleep. Anything I desire or crave above and beyond that is Avarice or greed. It is an insatiable appetite which can never be fulfilled. There is always more to be gotten, more needed to feel "safe", more, more, more... It's an endless battle that I can never win.
When I know, not just intellectually, that in this moment I have everything I need and more, the the desire, craving and most importantly Fear goes away and I can be calm and happy.
It is fear and ego which keeps me in the cycle of human suffering. If I lost everything, literally everything would I be able to lose my ego and ask you for food to feed to my children? I honestly do not know the answer to that question. If I had to beg for money, for food, for "handouts" would I be able to do it? It's a thought experiment and a good one, luckily though I have my health and could always shovel shit for a few bucks to feed my kids. I don't want to shovel shit though.
Maybe this is more of a venting blog because I see through the utter bullshit of modern American life. I'm opting out of a lot of it by selling my house, not watching TV, not engaging with news, not buying into commercialization and lies I bought into most of my life.
Sure, money itself it not evil, really it's just paper or now mostly electronic digits. It doesn't actually exist anywhere other than our minds as an agreed upon exchange of value. Basically, if tomorrow we all thought money had no value, it would have no value. That can be a great mindfuck for everyone piling up paper and electronic digits.
I myself no longer feel it's a great way to spend my time, amassing another store of potentially meaningless items. I'd rather be able to spend time connecting with people and creating real relationships not dependent on some external determination of the value.
Email me your thoughts ~ douglashilbert@yahoo.com
For past Letters to My Son blogs go to doughilbert.blogspot.com
For Health and Wellness Q&A go to askhilbert.blogspot.com
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