Hysterical

One day not long ago I was driving to work, and I was worrying about money. It happens to the best of us, as they say! In my head, I was churning around the possibilities of what I can do with the money I have, and how I could possibly get more, because, as you may not be surprised to hear, I feel like I do not have enough money.

Then my cell phone rang. I put the call through to my car speakers via my swanky Bluetooth interface in my luxury car (whose payments are one reason why I worry whether I have enough money or not), and the person on the other end was an old friend of mine from my old job. She needed me to do some consulting work for her, just a few hours on a Saturday. Eureka! Money! At $150/hr, a few hours on a Saturday was going to be pretty decent extra cash.

So, after hanging up with her my mind went right back to work spending that money that I might be getting but did not actually have yet. It was not long before I realized that even those measly few hundred dollars was not going to make a difference in my finances. The amount of money from that work compared to the amount of debt I am in was not significant. In fact, someone could give me ten times that amount and although it would make a decent dent in my debt, it would not end it, and my daily rat race would not change at all. I would be right onto the next gig, hoping to make another score. My mood began to spiral downward.

Then I was struck by something in all of that!

My life was not going to change at all from receiving that money for the consulting work. Financially speaking, my life would be the same before and after: I would be looking for ways to get money to pay the debt. So really there was no point to getting this money. It was not going to change a thing. In fact, to really change my lifestyle in a tangible way, it would take a whole lot of money which was not likely as far as I could see. So why was I beating myself up over this?

Good question.

Then I was struck by a vision of sorts. I sort of split into two and had a conversation with myself:

Self 1: If someone paid all my debts, what would I be doing right now?
Self 2: Investing!! Putting my money to work for me instead of chasing debt!
Self 1: Ok, great. What would that get me?
Self 2: More money!! A positive net worth!
Self 1: True, and what would I do with that extra money?
Self 2: Upgrade my lifestyle, maybe go back into a little debt even?
Self 1: *Laughing* Ok, fine. How long would it take to get enough money invested to actually change my lifestyle?
Self 2: A long time. Years.
Self 1: Years?! So, ok, if I had no debt and a bunch of money in the bank, what would I be doing differently RIGHT NOW, TODAY?
Self 2: Nothing. You'd be driving to work just like this.

It was an astonishing revelation. For a few moments afterwards, I pretended that all my debts were gone and I had a bunch of money in the bank, and I felt no different. I was still in my car driving to work. I was still right here, right now.

What you've just seen here is a perfect example of someone being overtaken by ego. When you step back and look at it, all of that stuff was in my head. None of it was real. Money, debt, all those types of things are numbers, especially nowadays in the Age of Information. Money is less real now than it ever was: it's just a bunch of 1's and 0's encoded as electrical impulses. So why do we get beat up about it? It happens because the ego loves an opportunity to draw you out of the Present Moment.

If you ever realize this happening to you, stop. Ask yourself what the logical conclusion of your desires is. If you follow the logic long enough, you will start to see the emptiness and flaws in it.

Go a step further. Close your eyes and spend time pretending you have what you want. Or, more importantly, open your eyes and pretend you have everything you want already and really be honest about how that would change your Present. Would it really?

Use this as an exercise to get yourself into the Present Moment. In the end, Now is all there is.