You're Missing The Steemit Point!

in #happiness7 years ago (edited)

Look, you’ve probably never thought about the value of money being its universality.

Not a reader? Watch the video:

Just because you can trade money for anything doesn’t make money inherently useful to you.

Money itself isn’t valuable; a piece of paper in a white room won’t do much for you. What it represents is tradeable value, but in that very trade you create a filter, an extra step.

In order to reach that extra step, you have to work much harder and be way less efficient in reaching your final goal than if you just went directly to the source.

@papa-pepper talks about this in his post on fishing and how he's interested in being more of a steward ; THAT is inherently valuable and you don't need money to perform as a steward.

@philosophy-trail talks about a similar topic in his post on service and balance. These things don't require money, they require the clear thinking that identifies what actually makes you happy.

You mistake money’s ability to be traded for anything with the experience you think you’ll buy.

If you want to be happy, do the things that bring you happiness. It ain’t complicated, mate.

Far too many people pursue money in order to buy things they like, rather than asking themselves “What makes me happy?”

If you like to bathe in $100 bills than maybe having money is the only way you’ll be happy.

For most of us, bathing in $100 bills isn’t a particularly pleasurable experience. Yes, I know some of you will say, “Well I’D sure like to bathe in $100 bills.”

You’re missing the point, you bloody idiot.

Without thinking about your own existence you’ll be doomed to take $1,000,000 baths without it ever making you happy. Sounds like hell to me.

I’d way rather spend time with my wife, or give my dogs a belly rub, or go paragliding, or help create a business; all those things make me really happy.

Think about it, seriously. What makes you happy?

You can comment or upvote or resteem if you want, but I'd be way more psyched if you actually followed those little clicky-bumps with serious ACTION.

Happiness is yours if you're willing to do those things that make you happy. Do it!

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yep. yep yep. totally agree. i joined lately to steem but i am happy this is still i even joined after one year

Glad you're here!

Nice post. Money is a store of value, but it has no purpose if all it does is store value. At some point the value is meant to be converted back into items or services we desire or need, or an experience that we wish to enjoy. When we collect it just for storage sake we call it hoarding. I've seen many people lose sight of the ultimate purpose of money and hoard it. Guess what? You can't take it with you and at some point, somebody else is going to have the enjoyment of those assets.

Thanks mate! Totally agree, doing the conversion of work-->money-->happiness creates significant efficiency loss in production value for most people.

I hearty agree. Life is no rehearsal. I value life and it's natural treasures a lot more in the last 3 years purely by getting into bushcraft/self-reliance. When I started out prepping it was all a blurred panic as I thought I needed stuff right now. WATER, WATER, WATER, FOOD, FOOD, FOOD. Supplies after supplies because that's all I could do at the time. Taking a step back, learning and exploring the old skool mentality made me realise that all this material 'wealth' that I had gathered had little value at all. I've now got a good understanding of procuring potable water, foraging knowledge, traditional fire starting method, etc. and I feel much more at ease with myself because of it.

Yep, it's amazing what happens when you invest in building your own system and learning vs putting time & effort into achieving material goals. Have you read Scott Adams' work on this? I think you'd dig it. There's one book in particular called something like "How to lose at almost everything and still win big" that really elaborates on this point.

Cheers :) Not heard of Scott Adams tho.

Dude, you're going to LOVE that book. Enjoy! (He's the guy who wrote the Dilbert comic series.)

Ahh. that fella :)
I will search it out, thanks :)

I agree and disagree but it would mean leaving you a super-long comment (!) so I'm going to reply in a post. Hope you don't mind! :)

Love it! Stoked to inspire other posts, reading other people's writing is surely what led to this post. Tell me when it's up and we'll link to it from your response. Saweet!

Thank you. It's up :) I mentioned your post in mine, but didn't know how to link to your post (ugh I really am like a grandma with technology!)

Here's the link: https://steemit.com/life/@flightsoflove/pursuit-of-happiness You can also do it the fancy way and use text to link to your blog post, like this.

If you want to do it the fancy way, enclose whatever text you want to show up in [brackets], then follow the last bracket immediately with the (link in parentheses).

@sykochica has a ton of really useful write ups on this, here's one that's relevant.

This post received a 1.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @paleotreats! For more information, click here!

You're the best @randowhale, thanks for the uppity upvote! :)

"I’d way rather spend time with my wife, or give my dogs a belly rub, or go paragliding, or help create a business; all those things make me really happy."

In order to do these things you need money "mate". Try having a wife with $0 dollars or children or a business.

Homeless men don't get married because they have no money.

Hi Joseph, sounds like you might have misunderstood. I'm not anti-money. It's a useful tool, but for most people it's not the actual end result they desire, just a way to get there and they mix those two things up.

Agreed!
Have been living free of money yet in abundance for 15 years!

Love it, keep on charging mate!

Hey man, you put it nicely, and I agree that contrast (or balance) in life is a precondition for happiness. However, balance (and therefore happiness) is much harder to achieve in the so-called "second"and "third-world" countries (I am not a fan of that term) where most people are basically struggling to make it through the month. Thansk for the video :)

100% agree. As a First Worlder I have the extreme luxury of adjusting my "balance" rather than fighting for food, shelter, and water. I'm grateful for that dang near every day.