When I made my first dollar online, I quickly found out how much value we place on money. I also discovered how little we value our own time because of it.
Making money often means spending all of our time trying to hang onto it, leaving precious little time for actually enjoying it. That famous saying “Time is money” is not quite accurate.
The truth is that money can steal your time. It’s up to you to get control of it and make it work for you, not against you.
Break Free of the Vicious Cycle
First, we spend all of our time trying to make as much money as possible. Granted, we need money to survive, but we all need to learn not to make it our only focus.
Otherwise, when we finally do make it, being a workaholic is so in-grained in us that we can’t seem to break free of the vicious cycle. The cycle is work, sleep, get up and start working hard again.
Taking time for our ourselves to further our own sense of tranquility seems like wasting time. But, it’s really not. It’s imperative for our own peace of mind and even our physical health.
Stressful Information Overload
Every day, we all suffer from information overload, both when we are working and when we should be relaxing and enjoying life. The basic scenario of working too hard and not enjoying life to its fullest can hit us all.
Our high-tech society causes this stressful side-effect more and more each day for more people. If you feel yourself slipping into the treadmill of debt and always earning more to satisfy it, try to step back and re-assess where you are going in life.
Find Your Career Strengths
Finding our niche in life and being able to spend our working years doing something that makes us happy and fulfilled is a major milestone for everyone.
For those of you who are still trying to determine your strengths and a suitable career path for your personality type, here is a link to a test than can help you to distinguish them.
It also includes a free career test to help you to establish your professional strengths. These are very significant determinations that everybody should make sooner rather than later.
Money Misconceptions
Many of us still find it difficult to separate happiness from the notion of being rich, or at least well-off. Here is a helpful link with some very concise insight into questions about what money really does and does not mean.
This article entitled “Money & The Meaning of Life” debunks some general misconceptions when it comes to money, such as the one that says that making a lot of money means you are smarter than those who don’t.
http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2011/05/money_and_the_meaning_of_life.html
Enjoy Life Without Money
The fact is that most of us forget that you don’t necessarily need a great deal of money to enjoy life. Here is a site that can help you discover some of the many things that money can’t buy, but are very enjoyable.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten about some of them and, if so, trying a few might help you to be more centered and enjoy life more fully.
http://moneyning.com/frugality/13-ways-to-enjoy-your-life-without-spendy-a lot-of-money/
Greater Purpose and You
Last but not least, no dialogue about the meaning of money would be complete without mentioning giving back. It’s one of the biggest driving factors for me and richardstep.com – I really do enjoy helping people out.
Don’t end up regretting the fact that you didn’t seriously consider how important it is to help others when you have made a bit extra in business and in life.
Money isn’t nearly as satisfying as it should be if you don’t do some good with it. Here’s a site that expresses that fact well.
Does Your Business Have A Greater Purpose?