Four Things That Make Money Meaningful

Four Things That Make Money Meaningful
Jacob Schroeder   Nov 13, 2020

Behind the long braids of barbed wire and tall machine-gun towers of Dachau came the unmistakable sound of laughter. A transport of prisoners from Auschwitz had just arrived, and they were joyful. 

To me, this was the most affecting scene in Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, about his physical and spiritual survival in Nazi death camps. He and his fellow captives became elated upon realizing they had been relocated to a camp without a chimney. As he writes: “We laughed and cracked jokes in spite of, and during, all we had to go through in the next few hours.”

Even in the darkest periods of mankind, fleeting moments of felicity could be found. Throughout the book, Frankl details what gave him a sense of meaning – art, humor, work, camaraderie – which helped him carry on over his several years in captivity.

As people tried to take away his humanity, he abided by the very thing he believed makes us human: “[A] human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy…through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.”

Whether you believe it is the pattern recognition system in our brains or some deep ineffable cosmic conscious, it is hard to deny we hunger for meaning. And regardless of your circumstances, you need not go far to find it.

So, if there is meaning to be found in everything, what about money?

How we use money can be considered an expression of what we consider meaningful. Although it is easy to succumb to societal pressures and spend it on status symbols that provide no meaning at all.

It’s why any financial adviser worth a ***** will tell you to concentrate on your values, the things that truly give your life meaning. Those things help you use money not to build wealth for wealth’s sake but build life satisfaction. What good is money if you feel empty?

What is meaningful to you, may not be to me; and what is meaningful to me, may not be to you. However, there four things that often involve money and that various studies show are where most people tend to find meaning in their lives.

1. Family

When I look at my bank statement, I can separate expenses into categories like entertainment, food, transportation, etc. But underlying about 90% of them is one thing: family.

Perhaps, you can relate.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://rootofall.substack.com/p/four-things-that-make-money-meaningful