do you LIVE or simply EXIST

Money. 

It’s been called the root of all evil.  

Money has never really been my friend. We’ve had more of a long-distance relationship. Everytime I wanted to get closer to money, the farther away it seemed to run. :)

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned more about my relationship with money. I grew up with a misunderstanding about money because my parents didn’t teach me about the importance of saving or investing. I can’t blame them for it, though. They didn’t know how to use money either, so how could they have taught their children?

My family was not dirt poor, but finances were always tight. I look back on my family’s use of money, and I now understand our lack of money was not due to not having any, it was about the attitude we had about money and how we used it.

As soon as money came into our lives, it was spent right away. If somehow there was extra money, we found something to spend it on.

There was never a discussion of saving for the future. Or investing. Investing was something only rich people did because they had extra money to invest.

I’ve now learned that saving and investing is something we must all do if we ever hope to escape the rat race. I’ve learned Money is the tool we use to achieve our goals. Money, itself, should never be the goal.

Read

One way to change your view of money is to read books like The Richest Man in Babylon or Think and Grow Rich or Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Money is like a seed

Back before there were genetically engineered crops, a farmer would harvest his corn, save some of it for planting the following year, and sell or eat the remaining. If he didn’t save some seeds for the future, he would end up with nothing. He would have to go out to beg, borrow or buy more so he could feed his family. In otherwords, if he didn’t invest some of his corn this year, he couldn’t grow a crop next year.

This is the same lesson we need to know about money. Most of us (at least most of the people I have known) live paycheck to paycheck. They spend everything they make, and save nothing for the future. So they have to continually work, spend, work, spend, work …. You get the idea. But what happens when you can’t work anymore? What then?

The investment-minded worker knows to set aside a portion of his pay for the future. As described in The Richest Man in Babylon, each of your dollars is a soldier you can put to work to earn more soldiers.

One of the best things that happened for my future was investing in a 401k. I didn’t like it at first. It was forced on me by municipal government I worked for after college. They had no retirement plan, so everyone was forced to contribute at least 6% to a 401k. They contributed 3%. I hated it at first. Then as the money began to grow, I saw the wisdom of it. Had they not forced me to save, would I have had anything at all for my future? Probably not.

Financial education is something they don’t teach in school. I belive if every grade had a mandatory class on saving, investing, and business, we would all be better off.

It’s generally accepted that the older you get, the harder it will be to save enough. The Simple Dollar just posted this review of Start Late, Finish Rich that may give hope to those who think it’s too late.

I encourage all of you to think about your financial future. It’s never too soon. As a matter of fact, if the average 18-year-old started a reasonable retirement plan, they could retire as a millionaire without much difficulty. And if they were aggressive about it, they could retire well before the normal retirement age.

Each day I see those who are not well off. Those who need a helping hand. My heart goes out to many of them.

Especially now, at Christmas, it normal to want to spread compassion and help those he need it and deserve it. Just last month, I assisted a youth group in their project to feed the homeless at a homeless shelter.

I fully support donating time and food in such worthy causes. But I draw the line at giving them money. For example, I often see homeless men on the side of the road with a cardboard sign reading “need a little help, please!” or something similar.

I feel for his plight, but I refuse to reward him not changing his life.

I admit there are many mentally ill among the homeless. I am half-way through a master program to become a counselor. I plan to donate time for those who are homeless and mentally ill. But I still will not give them money.

Am I heartless? Hear me out. First, let’s talk about compassion.

Types of compassion

Most people know what compassion is: feeling bad for others, wanting to ease their burdens. Some of us don’t realize there are two approaches to compassion: feminine compassion and masculine compassion.

Most of us know what feminine compassion is: the desire to help, nurture and care for another. Masculine compassion is a little more harsh. It is also feeling for the other person, and a desire to help. But it also recognizes helping can mean demanding action, or taking action to relieve suffering.

Here is the best example I can give to explain the two types of compassion: I like to watch animal planet and similar type shows. The program I watched not long ago was a documentary on lions. A young lioness was trampled by a herd of animals as it was trying to hunt. It was seriously injured.

The other female lions gathered around the injured one. They nurtured it, stayed close to it and did everything one would expect from the nurturing nature of compassion.

Then the male came over. He too was attentive to the injured lion. But when it became obvious that the injured lioness was seriously injured, the male killed it.

This is a harsh example of feminine and masculine compassion. As difficult as it may be to understand, the male lion’s act was just as loving as the nurturing of the females: he ended the suffering of a friend when it was obvious that friend would not recover.

(For a better explaination of feminine and masculin compassion, read Yin and Yang Compassion.)

Help them. But don’t give them money.

A sign I recently saw entering Grand Junction, Colorado read, “A hand-out is not helping them out.”

When dealing with the homeless, I support donating food, clothing, toys, etc to help them. I have done so myself. But as soon as we start handing them cash, many of them lose incentive to do anything better. It’s operant conditioning at it’s finest: Reinforcing a behavior so it is repeated.

A friend of mine’s son has been homeless for several years. He refuses to get a job. And he’ll tell you, “why should I?” He gets free food, free medical care, donations on the street. On Sunday, he doesn’t have to go to church, church comes to him as missionaries preach and feed him. In most ways, he lives the carefree lifestyle many of us wish for.

We form our own reality

We live the lives we want. That’s the message in The Secret, which I wrote about in Why is The Secret in everything?

We make choices every day. Some of the choices are subconscious ones, but we make them. These choices affect our realities. They become our realities.

I am living the life I chose to live. Even though there are many things about it I am unhappy with, I chose it anyway. Now that I recognize it, I am doing things to make new choices.

It is the same with the homeless.

Have “tempered” compassion. Help them with food, clothing, job training and encouragement. Show them what they need to do to overcome homelessness. Instill in them a vision of prosperity.

But never pay them to be homeless.

(Update: not everyone agrees with this point of view. What do you think? Leave a comment below.)