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**Rough Script**
If you’re making $5k or $10k or $100k or $1M, it’s possible that you’re still unhappy or dissatisfied.
Why people who are making some great money are still dissatisfied is what we are going to talk about today.
So I’m going to cover two things today that you may have not heard before, one the feeling that you derive when you consume money and how it affects your happiness.
Also, yes I said “CONSUME” and not “MAKE or EARN” money because there’s a reason.
and second the basic nature of everything including money and how the misconception on it is affecting your life.
So let’s dive in:
[Intro track]
Here’s the thing:
It’s not when you earn money it’s when you spend it makes you feel more satisfied.
There are two things that I’m going cover under this first sub topic.
Let’s start with the first.
We want to earn money so we can fulfill our desires. So we can buy tangible things or have a better life style.
For instance, I desperately want a telescope because I want to see the stars and planets so I can feel more closer to them.
So if I have a telescope right now, How does it change the level my happiness?
Will I be happier?
I will be for sure, but I’m equally happy right now while recording this episode.
I’m joyful and will be more of the same when I have a telescope because I chose to be content and blissful. Because I chose peace.
You see people confuse between a lot of emotions related to happiness.
One is pleasure, then blissfulness, joyfulness, content, peace.
Sometimes people are peacefully doing their daily chores, and if you ask them “hey are you happy, they’d say “YES”, sort of. You’d say why sort of? well, because I’m not jumping for joy, I just feel satisfied/complete.
Now you must be thinking, how is this related to “MONEY”
Give me a minute you guys. Stay with me.
So here’s the thing:
When you earn money, you either spend it, or save it, or invest/re-invest it, or donate it. Agree?
You cannot do anything else with money giving the basic nature of money. Right? Ethical ways! As in you can’t use it to re-print it as done in “Good Girls” web series on Netflix.
Now, when you do any of those activities you derive a utility.
The utility is satisfaction.
ok?
So you derive satisfaction when you donate money or buy stuff that you always wanted to.
Here’s the thing and pay attention here: do not lose focus any second from now on.
Satisfaction can be pleasure, relief, or a feeling of pride.
When you buy a handbag, it’s a short-term pleasure.
When you pay your debt you feel relieved.
When you buy a house, yes it is long term satisfaction but more than that you feel safe.
When you buy new furniture, you feel proud of yourself.
In fact, even when you donate, you feel more proud of yourself.
In fact, you derive satisfaction when you spend more and more money, aka consume money. And yes it’s 100% correct.
Think of it this way, you have money and you went to your fav market, now even though you don’t really wish to buy anything in particular, you will still purchase a few things,
Why, you ask?
Because spending money or consuming money also makes you feel satisfied.
It’s like eating even when you are not hungry. You feel satisfied that you ate something.
So it’s not always the product that you are purchasing that matters, it’s the ability to buy it, that matters.
You will feel more satisfied just on the thought that you can buy something.
But the problem is even when people have paid off their debt, or have a million followers, have paid their kids tuition fee, have bought a new sea-facing house in Malibu, they are still unhappy or dissatisfied.
Here’s why:
It’s in the basic nature of both tangible and intangible things to make you feel something, but that feeling fades away as we consume more and more of it.
For eg: As you spend more and more time with your girlfriend or boyfriend, the butterflies will fade away.
Similarly, as you spend more and more money, the satisfaction you derive declines.
You don’t derive that additional pleasure anymore.
And so people come to the conclusion that running after money is a waste of time or money cannot buy happiness.
The truth is:
It’s in the very nature of everything. If you derive pleasure from something, pleasure will decrease slowly and slowly.
You buy a new dress, next time you don’t feel like wearing it.
It doesn’t plummet. but leaves you dissatisfied or at false conjectures.
Another problem is people think that, when they’ll have more money, something will change in them because they believe it is money that transforms people. They believe money creates great businessmen, or great thought leaders, and visionaries.
And so they conclude if they can earn well they can become a visionary or a thought leader. So many struggling entrepreneurs once they have earned a certain amount of money start to believe that now they have become powerful and valuable.
You’ll see in them a sudden change in attitude once they see that success. They start to believe that everything they’ll touch will become golden.
The truth is: Money doesn’t change anything inside you. If it makes you feel jumping for joy that’s temporary if it makes you feel excited that’s temporary too.
It’s temporary because you can’t stay in that state of mind for long, because it’s a short term pleasure, or is just a relief
That being said, I’m not saying that MONEY CANNOT MAKE YOU HAPPY, it can and it will, because it does aid in your growth. let’s say you are naturally a joyful person, but and you wish to provide your kids a better education. If you cannot do that it’ll always pinch you deep inside.
For instance, I have an iMac, now some people are right now working their ass off just to buy an iMac, will it make their life easier, probably YES, but will it make them a happier person? Can’t say! Most probably a NO!
NOTE: If your basic nature is to sulk, you will sulk even if you have tons of money. You will sulk on something else, and because your mind sees “SULKING” as a natural action and reaction to something, it’ll make sure you SULK, it’ll find something for you.
Neuroscience explains the same process in some other ways, for example, Marissa peer often describes it in words like, we have a tendency to lean towards familiar things, and if feeling sad or disappointed is familiar to your brain, you’ll remain so even if you earn $1M.
Ok so now you must be thinking what should we really do?
Here’s an ex for you: 1. Write down 7 things that you enjoy doing, and you think that even if you become a millionaire or a billionaire, those things won’t change. Or how you do those things won’t change. Silly things that make you smile, eg;
2. “5” attributes that you have and you don’t want to let go of them. Remember I’m not talking about skills, I’m talking about innate qualities,
I’ll conclude but I do have another subtopic on this main topic.
*ROUGH SCRIPT*