Green Gluttonies

Money. What is it? “Money is the root of all evil”. Correction, “The love of money, is the root of all evil.” We all know this and yet so many of our lives are consumed with the desire to have more, to live at a higher financial perspective. We all know the sacrifice we pay for this insatiable desire. We pay with our lives. We give up all of our time; we redirect the very livelihood of our lives for our careers in the chase. We lose sight of what living is really about. But we’ve already sold our souls to the devil, we have already indebted our lives ten folds with financial obligations, further ensuring that we will continue to sacrifice the very meaning of living.

Is it worth it? Is it really? You get one life. What do you want to show for it? What do you want to make of it? Do you want a life full of materialistic symbols of all you have achieved? Or do you want the moments in life that touch your soul and challenge you to go beyond your normal boundaries? Time; we know we sacrifice it but do we truly understand the core meaning of it?

Humble me for a moment. Imagine a time before society has developed into this well-oiled machine and think back to when we were hunters and gathers. Think back to what the meaning of life was then. Money was known as a trade good, it was used to bare the necessities of life.

Somewhere over time we lost sight of this concept and have become enraptured by wealth and all it stands for. The allure and lust of it all entrapped the very direction of our lives, the very delegation of our time. Even now, money is only a trade good; it’s only our perception that has changed. We trade our lives and souls for the very idea of it. We give up all of our precious time to live for this cycle. Even if we don’t think about it, we sacrifice truly living to some extent, to some varying degree.

Money is all I know. I live it, I breathe it. It is the core of my career. Stocks and bonds: the very foundation of what society signifies as wealth and financial prosperity. I see so much monetarily movements slip through my fingers that I only see it as the very numbers that wisp by. There is divine discipline in rendering the idea of money powerless. Acknowledging that it is mostly our love for money that engulfs our lives in consumption, greed and continuous desire.

It’s the idea of wealth that we want; its merely money that provides the materialistic symbols we seek. But do you ever stop to see the cost at hand? What if we thought in measures of time rather than money when purchasing something?  Would you still commit to this desire if you had to acknowledge the amount of hours, days, weeks, even months of your time it might take to render this transaction paid in full? What if you viewed monetary purchased in forms of time rather than financial costs.

We need to change the perspective in which we see and have regard for money. We shouldn’t invest our life’s time towards working for things that don’t add true value to our lives. To me, time is the most valuable thing we have, each and every one of us. Collectively we fail to truly appreciate the very essence of the time we have, often getting distracted by the absurdities life creates.

Take back the power, take back the perspective, take back your life. Money is a trade good, nothing more, nothing less. Everything else and in between are a result of your perspective and desires. And even if just for a moment, I hope you appreciate all of the time you have. I hope you see worth in the life that you have in its barest form.