You ask people why they want more money.

Answer:

“So I don’t have to worry about money, about paying my bills, rent, putting food on the table, medical expenses, etc.”

Is that true though?

Not necessarily.

Here’s what typically happens when people get more money.

They spend more.

They buy more things.

They upgrade their lifestyle. Why?

The reasons vary.

They want to reward themselves. Maybe signal to others that they’ve “made it”. Live the lifestyle of the rich and famous celebrities they see on TV.

But the trap is once you spend more, you need to make more just to maintain it. You pay more in maintaining, insuring, repairing the things you buy, and then other people see you with money and they feel entitled to some, particularly extended family members, and they become somewhat become dependent on your income, as well as other workers you hire to help you and all of a sudden, there’s a lot more at stake that you can lose compared to before.

When you have more in your life, you feel less secure simply because you have a lot more to lose now should something go wrong.

And should something go wrong, it will take you so much just to get back to where you are now.

You don’t want to go back so you do all you can to maintain the status quo.

You do this ESPECIALLY if your motivation for upgrading your lifestyle was to display that you’ve “made it”. You do all you can so you don’t lose face.

But even working just to maintain the status quo isn’t enough. You want to have a surplus just in case things go bad. So you begin to work even harder to make sure you have enough “cushion”.

But sure enough, when you make more, you start spending more so the cycle repeats itself once again.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of the married couples who finally got their white picket fence 2 story house in the suburbs but didn’t find themselves that much happier. Just more worried. They longed for the days when they were newlyweds living in the one bedroom apartment.

So what’s the solution to all this?

If you look at the cycle, it’s really easy.

Don’t get into it in the first place.

The biggest temptation when you start making more is to spend more.

But who said you HAVE to do that?

It’s a given that too many people take for granted.

And one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to peg your identity with the things you buy because when you set that standard, it’s hard to get off it. Moreover, your identity is based on something outside you, something you can lose and if that happens, you may find yourself in the midst of a full blown identity crisis. Resist the urge to go nuts, for at least one month. I guarantee you when you go back to revisit your ideas of what you were going to spend your increase of money on, the intensity of them will have subsided.

And if you keep the same lifestyle but earn more, your money worries will not be as intense and be somewhat alleviated.

You’ll still have some worries such as what you’re going to do with the money so you can safely invest it, but those worries won’t be as intense as the ones that too many people fall into when they start that viscous cycle of spending more, just giving themselves a bigger hamster wheel to run on.

It’s funny how people envy the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but don’t realize that they too, sometimes lay awake at night – wondering what if.

What if they lose it all?

What are they going to do then?

More money doesn’t necessarily mean less worries.

More often than not, it means more if you’re not careful.

And all that energy spent worrying is such a waste when you think about it in the grand scheme of things. We’ve all seen the charts that plot income with happiness. As soon as you make enough to meet your needs and save a little for the future, your happiness doesn’t increase.

We know intuitively there’s more to life than living the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Let’s not fall into the trap.

Let’s not waste our energy on juggling bigger worries.

Let us use that energy for a higher purpose, one bigger than just solely indulging ourselves in pleasure. Let us use that energy and money for something more meaningful and far more worthwhile.