Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Points Of View

Where should one start to write about money? I started by grabbing one of the books i read about the topic quite some time ago and stumbled upon the following:

"But you only pay me 10 cents."
"So what are you learning?"
"That you're cheap."
"See you think I am the problem."
"But you are."
"Well, keep that attitude and you learn nothing."

Money is a matter of perspective. It is a necessity for all, the power to shape fortune to some. It is an offending object, a measurement of value, a medium for exchange.

Let's start by assessing our attitude concerning money:

Is money a tool to you or are you driven by money?

I try to think money as a tool. But all so often end up feeling not quite like that is true. There is a baseline of necessities that need to be met for my family and me. Screw that and your in trouble. Money as a necessity will start to dominate a lot of your decisions. Feels like someone else is in the driver seat to me: the boss, the bank, the empoyment agency? Hard to keep up the idea of using money as a tool, if you are running low on cash.

The welfaring point of view suggests everyone should be entitled to enough money to come by. The empowerment point of view suggests people should live in an environment where engagement puts them in a position to care for themselves. There is quite some polarity out there about which point of view one should take. It seems most of us tend to argue like there was a fixed amount of money so that we are stuck in a world of scarcity bound to battle for our share. This is not where I want to go. I believe polarity to be neither helpful nor true.

Shaping fortune is not about money at least it is not about money alone. Shaping fortune is about people. Getting things accomplished is not about money either. Accomplishment happens when people lean into problems, when they are motivated to impact their life and the lives of others around them. Money might be involved in this. It often is, but there is a lot of value that is never attributed with a moneys worth.

I will be thinking and writing about money as a feedback-engine. We all crave for positive feedback. Positive feedback is good as it provides motivation to do good. At it's best the money system is quite good at providing such feedback. What a shame that the system is far from being at it's best quite often. We will have to explore that.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment!
@Tegwick

The conversation quote is from "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki.


Sunday, October 20, 2013

The Start

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. --H. L. Mencken

Starting today i will be blogging on money. Why? Because money is a form of feedback, we use every day. Money is a personal necessity and at the core of how we arrange our lives. Money is one of the core systems of rules our society is based upon. Therefor money reflects upon our belief systems. Money runs deep, influences all of us and is moving into the digital domain. So it happens many of my interests, projects and thoughts touch on money. It's interesting. That is why!