adminsinking of Western continents due to the increased mass of mankind. With this rise in fat levels has come the steady stream of diets to unsate our appetites and decrease our waistlines.
There is the fasting diet, the fast food diet (I kid you not there is a Starbucks diet), the blood group diet, the Adkins diet, the abs diet . . . the list is endless. All have one thing in common, they pander to the desires of people by promising to help you shred the extra pounds as fast as possible.
Sometimes we have the same attitude towards money, except unlike the food diet we aim to get as much of it as possible as quickly as we can, disregarding all collateral damage. One just has to compare prices between here and our southern neighbours to see how some people are managing to do so.
The first step to negotiating yourself safely through The Money Diet is to realise that money is just a tool. Money in itself is not the end thing. It can be a way of keeping score if you will, but it is a means of getting to where you go.
Think about it for a minute, those precious American dollars that you have are not backed by anything. Unlike days of old you cannot redeem them for gold.
They are simply a way to simplify and facilitate exchange of goods. Most of us have no real control over how much money is deemed to be worth, the rand devalues and there is little that the average guy on the street can do about it.
Our memories of the pre-dollarisation days should be a warning of how fickle money can be as a source of security.
Have something bigger that you are aiming for as opposed to simply a large bank balance. I don’t care if it is an inheritance for your children or ending world poverty, but think beyond the $ signs. Be bigger than that.
People get fat when they consume more food than they expend in energy. The best diets work on reducing kilojoule intake below the body’s expenditure. In a similar manner if you spend more money than you bring in you will be in debt.
I cannot really change that simple maths. You can fudge the accounts all you wish but at the end of the day you cannot save, invest, or utilise what you do not have.
Be generous. Learn to give away. Many money guides promote the idea of giving away a fixed percentage of your income or a the very least a fixed amount.
I was challenged by someone recently to look at it in reverse. What if you have a fixed budget that you need to live on, one that adequately meets your needs, and regardless of how much your income grows you stick to the budget and give away the rest to whichever worthy cause you deem fit?
The idea blew my mind. What a paradigm shift to the standard “hoard all you can” idea.
Stop comparing yourself to other people. Diet books and fitness magazines place beautiful photo-shopped images of “ideal” figures on their front covers. It is amazing what you can do with digital image enhancement today, you can take the relatively ordinary and turn it into an impossible standard.
Comparing yourself to a cover guy gives you an unrealistic standard to reach, especially if they are half your age, have never had a body fat percentage over 10, eat a lettuce leaf for breakfast, and have some photographic whizzkid editing out all the blemishes.
Covetousness has us comparing ourselves with everyone else with a desire to possess what they have regardless of how we get it. Left unchecked, it is not enough to have the same type of car as Bill, no, it is Bill’s actual car that we want.
At that point we will destroy Bill and all he has worked for just to have his car. Sadly, unless you are actually in the top spot, there will always be someone with more than you. No one has ever successfully kept up with the Joneses.
Invest in real wealth. Yes, here it comes, the “R word”. The reason I harp on about this so much is that it is vital to our continued success. Invest in relationships. People are the real wealth.
Build the sort of relationships that do not keep score, that have your back. Invest in the relationships that will survive no matter how much you have in the bank account. At one point my standard phone response was “what can I do for you?”
Sounds like a pretty selfless response, until I point out that I expected everyone else to be just the same. I only ever called people when I wanted something. A friend challenged me on it, he dialled me up me once and when I parroted out my usual greeting he said, “Nothing, I just wanted to see how you were, life is not always about needing something from someone.” That conversation changed my life.
I am not advocating poverty, nor am I against prudent savings and wise investment. I am merely pointing out a need to keep a proper perspective concerning money, lest we spend our entire life pursuing it only to find it be blown away in the wind and leave us with nothing at all.
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