Money is Freedom...

"MONEY IS FREEDOM.". That was the theme of my thinking around money - well, at least consciously for the past three years. We tend to associate the flow of money with having greater choice. Choices like the work we do, the hours we work, products we buy, holidays we enjoy, etc. I have been inspired by the book called “30 Lies about Money: liberating your life, freeing your money” by Peter Koenig. The part of the title that I paid attention to was "Lies about money". This blog is to share what I learned in the hope that it may also spark some insights for you.

‘Money is freedom’ is one of the lies we believe, according to this book (Huh?...I wasn't quite ready for that challenge in my beliefs- after all, I am a financial advisor, fairly self-aware working on this conscious relationship with money or so I thought). You could also apply it to ‘Money is safety/security’ or whatever belief around money you currently hold...

As I read page after page of this book slowly, keen to avoid my usual speed reading style as I wanted to absorb insights along the way, that money is NOT freedom. It made complete, logical sense to me - what Peter Koenig talks about in the book - that freedom is experienced inside of you. It is a value or longing or need, the experience of which you sense inside of you in present existence.

Many people have a lot of money who feel quite burdened and stressed.  There are also people with very little money such as monks or others who are financially poor and yet they are very in touch with their choice and freedom. They appear not to be constrained by their outside circumstances because freedom is something that they feel or enjoy or sense inside.

It was freeing to recognise that I had this massive projection about money, that I believed that money was freedom, therefore, having more money meant more freedom and that I was giving up some of my present freedom to chase future freedom.

As Peter Koenig says, "You are free now- or not at all!"