Today's Happiness Practice - Love before Money

Today I am going to put love before money. (audio version on clyp.com)

Yeah, I'm a little surprised too. One would think that was an inherent part of happiness - "Do what you love, and the money will follow." (Marsha Sinetar*)

But of course there is that whole aspect of, well, what do I love?

And the follow up - I love a lot of things! Upon which one shall I focus?

And then there's the - but I need the money now in order to have the strength to figure out what I love to do.

And yeah, I've been working through all that. Slowly and steadily.

But, interestingly, today's practice is a little more literal.

You see, I've been doing my daily work in the mind set of - do your chores, and then you can play. Because, yes, my work feeds me.

But the admin work (the chores) is very draining. I don't know why; I imagine that will reveal itself when I figure out how to do the chores effortlessly. But I do know that the admin requires so much focus and energy and pushing myself to do it, that I then take long breaks and I don't get to the stuff I really want to do.

The admin work - paying bills, bookkeeping - the money.
The rest of the work - practicing for seminars, website, writing - the love.

I have been doing the love (or hoping to do the love) after the money.

This week I'm going to practice doing the love before doing the money. I am proposing to myself that the energy high, the being fed on doing the work, will carry me through doing the money. In fact, energetically that makes so much sense - because money is inherently grounding. And a lot of the work I do is energy work. Grounding myself before I've had a chance to even take off really makes it difficult to do anything but watch television and try to search for ways to get myself motivated.

To put it another way - I'm going to eat dessert first. And the sweetness will require that I then eat the main course - savory and salty and possibly even a little spicy - to put myself back in balance.

Oh, wow. Again - that might work literally! I love spicy food, but I've been having a problem eating it lately. Maybe I can try that "backwards" also!

Oh yeah! Do, eat, work at, take flight with what I love. And let the money, the earthiness, the grounding follow.

I am excited for today!  I hope you have a great one too.

-Lila

*the quote is attributed to Marsha Sinetar, according to brainyquote.com

If you're like me... The real cost of bottled water

If you're like me, you've been downsizing.
A lot.
And like any other form of self improvement, just when you think you've hit the lovely, level plateau of accomplishment, another mountain of opportunity is presented.

If you're like me, you're still fluctuating between fiscal franticness and fiscal freedom. And you're probably as tired of reading about my monetary journey as I am of writing about it.
And you know there is more to money that the arbitrary value assigned it by some faceless being somewhere who equates money with power, and expects us all to do the same.
And you know there is more to the COST of a thing, than simply the monetary value assigned.
And you know somewhere, somewhere really close, there is that beautiful place (perhaps a plateau) where money and value and personal happiness and understanding and abundance and connectivity and spiritual bliss all meet and dance.

As a happiness practitioner, money is one of the most difficult things for me to...
...deal with
...face
...understand
...accept
...get a grasp on.
 And I don't think it's all due to my unique view of the Universe. The "economy" aspect is just too slippery, and possibly illusionary, to find a good handle. So I'm left with a mix  of platitudes about work ethics and spiritual wealth that neither agree, nor provide for my happiness at all.

So naturally, as soon as the thought comes to mind that I need to budget, or cut back, or curtail my spending, I become rebellious. "That's not how I want to operate." "That's poverty thinking." "That's giving up on my dreams!"
Which, yes, I suppose some of it is.
But perhaps, since it is something that has happened over and over again, there's more to be looked at.

Like downsizing.

The key to downsizing, at least for me, was to look at something and ask "It is something I use?" (or "something we use", since there is a spouse involved.) And if they answer was, "Oh, yes!" -- even if that use was for comfort, or happy memories -- the item stayed.
And if the answer was, "Well, it's something I want to use," then most often it was released. (True, there were some things that didn't make the first cut. They often made the second.)

One of my quirks is that I believe everything is a form of energy. And energy is meant to be used. Lying fallow does not make the energy more valuable, or less valuable, it simply makes it a resource that isn't being utilized.
So having things that I don't use is almost sacrilegious.

Now I am facing that financial mountain again.
And I am working at it.
I am climbing it. With my keyboard as my pitons and my marvelous exotic brain as my rope, I am making my way up that mountain to the next restful plateau.
But along the way, I still have thoughts - about cutting costs. And slimming down. And. And. And.

And I realized today, it was not poverty thinking, or defeatism. It was the need for more downsizing. Or, a more comfortable, streamlining.

Because how much does a 6 gallon bottle of purified spring water cost? Well, there's the water price, and the bottle deposit price, but you get the bottle deposit back when you exchange and...
Yeah. No. I actually mean, how much does it cost in terms of effort. And what about space.
Part of my work area is taken up with the extra water bottle - because who wants to run out?!. It fits nicely, but it's in the way when I'm doing rune readings, and sometime when I'm practicing my music.
Add to that, the water bottle is heavy. I cannot pick it up. I am reliant upon my spouse to change my water.
Add to that, one has to go to the store to get the water. It does not conveniently appear in my home. (yes there are delivery services. Those involve strangers.)
Add all of those costs - cumbersome bottles, dependency, time and energy to retrieve it - to the monetary cost of the water. That's actually a pretty high, uncomfortable price, if you're like me.

So perhaps it's time to streamline. There is already water coming to the apartment. With absolutely no effort on my part. It is used for multiple things; I LOVE multi-use things. So what's one more thing for which to use it? Add filter, and free up time & space. Yay, streamlining!

So perhaps, if you're like me, the money crunch isn't so much a poverty consciousness, as it is an awareness of all the costs; and further an improvement in the practice of using what you have.

If you're like me, there are still a lot of aspects in life that can use downsizing. Or streamlining. We've done the easy one - the physical visual objects. Now it's time for the next mountain.

What freedom is possible?

I hope you have a great, and multi-useful, day!
-Lila

Soapbox of Perception - Imagine (as seen in Newsletter)

I would like to lead you on a mental exercise.

Think of your day, from beginning to end. You wake up. You break your fast, and groom yourself. You start your projects. You go to work or stay to work. You pick up groceries. You come home. You eat. You hang out with friends or family or both. You relax. You retire.

How many times did you pull out your wallet and give money to someone?

If it was none, yay. It was once or more, try again. Go through your day without giving money to anyone. Go through the day without receiving money from anyone. Keep everything else the same, including the picking up of groceries. Just take money totally out of the equation.

No, you're not stealing anything. You walk into the store, or get online, search for what you want, put it in the basket, even go through checkout for inventory or delivery purposes. And you leave the store or site. With no one chasing you. With no guilt. With the pleasant (or slightly annoyed) feeling of having accomplished another necessary chore.

Imagine that in your day. All the regular activities without money.

Imagine it in your week. Your month. Your year.

It's difficult to wrap your head around. It's taken me a long while to get past the reflex reaction of… if there's no money, how will I pay rent? How will I get food? How will I have electricity?

But imagine there is no money. Do the houses disappear? Does the soil quit growing produce? Do the cows quit giving milk? Do you stop?

During the Great Depression people didn't just cease to exist when they ran out of money. They may have killed themselves, or each other, but they didn't poof out of sight. The buildings stood vacant and fell into disrepair, they didn't vanish when the rent could no longer be paid. Think of this last economic crisis. The electricity didn't suddenly become unavailable when a person couldn't pay for it. It was turned off.

Despite the way we phrase it, money does not run the world. People use money to try and run other people. People use money as a status symbol, as power. And because money is the tool we use for goods exchange, people do a lot of things because they need money.

But what is money, really? It is an IOU. It is a form of barter using a middle man. Instead of working directly for the farmer and receiving milk and eggs and veg, you spend your time and energy at work. In exchange, work gives you money. You go to a store and trade the money for the edibles. The store has traded with the distributor, and the distributor trades with the farmer.

But money no longer represents the amount of energy expended.

Did I work any harder as an accountant than I did as a fast food clerk? No, I didn't. In fact, considering the smell and the quick tempo, the hazardous conditions, and polyester rash, fast food was probably a more difficult work environment than at-home bookkeeping.

And frankly, I work just as hard at writing as I did in the drive through station during rush hour. It's just different work.

So why is the monetary return so different, between energy expenditures: writer (zero); fast food worker (minimum wage); accountant (which could be anything from "nice" to "ridiculous"); retail; lawyer; teacher; insurance agent; doctor; politician; soldier; movie star?

Yes, yes. School and popularity and trends and fashion and science. So many philosophical and psychological discussions to tackle! And in my opinion, those are all, well, opinions.

For this article, let's just take money out of the picture.

Imagine: your health care doesn't depend on what you can afford. Imagine you can have whatever house brings you happiness, in whatever state or country you wish. Imagine you can train for whatever occupation you wish. Imagine wearing the clothes you like. Imagine driving the car you want to drive.

Imagine, more importantly, you could try a hundred different options until you found one that really truly suited you down to the ground. What are you doing with your life? What opportunities, options, possibilities for happiness have just opened up?

And, yes. I hear you. If there is no money, why would anyone work? Who would provide the health care, the houses, the street cleaning? What would motivate us? How would there be enough cool clothes, or cars, or food?  And how would we decide who gets which houses? Which cars? Which fancy stuff and which crap stuff?

Good questions. I hope to explore this subject further in a future article, now that I've actually managed to articulate the thesis. That money is not an accurate representative of the energy expended.

Perhaps you have the answer.

Imagine.

I hope you have a great day!

-Lila