Where Are You Sending Your Money?

Money goes where you send it

That is what my late grandpa and hero told me when I first got employed. I knew my grandfather for 31 of the 92 years he lived and one of the most important things he taught me was to be the master of my money. Being the master of your money means many things, but today I’d like us to talk about ways society covertly or overtly tries to be the master of OUR money.

As we grow up, we learn how to spend, the things that matter, and what success and wealth means from various places. Social conditioning plays a large part in shaping what money is to us.

On a random day when I log into twitter. I see the manifestation of this conditioning:

• A guy who lives in an sq (a studio apartment) does not deserve a great girlfriend
• Car loans are evil
• A Vitz is the very manifestation of poverty, almost to the point where it is preferable to walk than drive one
• If you live in Rongai you need to rethink your life
• When you check into fancy places (the Sankara Rooftop or is it Caramel?), you are definitely wealthy
• Don’t buy an iPhone, buy some land instead

And the list goes on and on and on.

I am sure you’ve known this all along, but I’ll repeat it: there’s no reason to pay such sentiments any attention.

See the purpose of your money is personal. More personal than a marriage, or even a child. You earn your money, only you can truly tell what that money should do for you. If you send your money to places where society approves, you will probably be popular for that moment when society is fixated on that item, then society will move onto something else, and you will have to chase after with your money to get approval once more. It doesn’t sound to me like you will be very happy.

The other thing we do is to take the lazy route. To do the conventional stuff; grow up, get a job, get a wife, a mortgage and a car on loan, then bear two children and you will be happy. Does this make some people happy? Yes it does. Does it make most of us happy? Only if endless obligations are equivalent to happiness. I doubt they are.

I’d like to challenge us to not be weak to society’s whims, and also to not be lazy in making decisions about our money and our lives. Think deeply, think of areas that make you happy and give your life meaning and send your money to those places.  If tinkling with gadgets makes you happy, do that. If you do not want to have kids because you want to save money to travel the world, do that.

The two questions for which you must have comfortable answers are:

Where am I sending my money? Is sending my money in those places giving my life meaning?

If you are at peace with the above, to hell with everyone else. I leave you with this quote from John Lennon. His mother was all kinds of cool:

“When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon