Myths About Motivation and Money

So, I read this short article yesterday (June 23, 2014), written by Allison Linn, CNBC.com, called; Wealthy Parents' Big Fear? Raising Spoiled Poor Little Rich Kids. Basically, what this article stated was that the rich lose sleep over worrying that their wealth will ruin their children. The survey that this article was based on asked wealthy families around the world; what their greatest fears regarding their wealth and their  future were. Worry about health was actually first, and secondly was that, “My children will lack the drive and ambition to get ahead.” 

Read that again, “My children will lack the drive and ambition to get ahead.” This is from parents who have $10 million or more. What this statement implies, is that money is what motivates people to get ahead. And maybe more importantly, it suggests that the lack of money is a motivator. What I’d really like to ask of these wealthy mamas and papas, is what they think getting ahead is when you come from a family with $10 mil. 

Where do we get our crazy ideas about money? If you are poor and hungry you are probably less likely to be motivated, simply because you are well, hungry and tired. Motivation is not something magic that some of us have and others don’t. Motivation is a normal human function that comes from a healthy functioning mind and body. This is not to say that those in extreme circumstances don’t often rely on whatever they can to be and stay motivated. This motivation can also come from altruism, like wanting good things for your children. 

Research finds over and over that really, after basic needs are met, people are not motivated by money. This however, flies in the face of most of our systems, where we worship not just money, but the concept of the lack of money, scarcity. What else would make getting ahead a priority for people who are not only already ahead, but there? As in, they have arrived. 

As my girls were growing up, I was worried for them, and not about them getting ahead, but about them getting a chance. I wanted them to have a chance to pursue their dreams, to travel, to be educated, to find an arena in which to connect and collaborate and be accepted and celebrated. To find and create relationship and community. This was not about getting ahead. I was worried because I’d internalized silly things that people wrote about children of single parented homes. I also worried because I’d bought into all the crazy myths about money and about enough. 

Well, now I know there is enough, and I don’t have to have $10 mil, or even $1 mil to know this. My daughters are finding their way in life, educating themselves, and traveling and creating relationship and family and community. I’m doing the same. I don’t think we can spoil our kids, and I don’t think we have to live with unexamined and untrue ideas about money, success, motivation and family. Our children aren't spoiled by money, but by our weird internalized beliefs. And even with that, there is always hope that their internal motivation will spur them to examine their beliefs, and with more resources, they should be able to access good people to help them on their journey. With $10 mil parents, come on, don’t worry, be happy. The children are all right. 

Bands of Gold (or Since You've Been Gone)

I sold my wedding rings yesterday for $360.00. In the midst of my losing my day job, which really is a good thing, and trying to restructure my life and how I see money, and well, just about everything else, it seemed like the right thing to do. And it was. I just didn’t realize how much those rings symbolized to me, and once they were gone, all that they meant surfaced, and it made sense why I’d held on to them for so long. 

I was barely nineteen years old when Steve drove me to Southdale, and once we’d gone inside the mall, told me to close my eyes as he held my hand and took me into J. B. Hudson Jewelers. Once I was in front of the diamond engagement rings, he told me to open my eyes. He could be very sweet and fun and romantic like that. We picked out a beautiful third of a carat ring, that along with the wedding ring, studded with emeralds, looked like a flower with a small second diamond bloom. 

Picking out a ring from one of the best jewelers in town meant that I was cared for, valued, cherished. Steve’s mom asked why I couldn’t just get a ring from Goodman’s, the other jewelry store at the mall, but most people just agreed that it was a beautiful ring. This ring meant that our love was legit, that Steve wasn’t just ‘using’ me, he loved me and wanted to marry me. And for many many years, these rings were the most precious things I’d ever had, monetarily and symbolically. The ring meant I was a ‘good’ girl, found, not lost. 

There were four rings in all that I sold, the engagement and the wedding rings, which were soldered together, a third, plain gold band that I asked Steve to buy me when Kathleen was a baby, and the tall setting on my ring nearly scratched her. I decided it was time to retire the beautiful set, at least for a while, for this plain gold band. It too, represented that Steve would listen to me, would value me and see that as much as the other rings were beautiful, sometimes it was time to be pragmatic, sensible. I was a plain band, but modern, with square, not rounded edges. 

Then, there was my grandmother’s dented, plain gold band. This was the ring my mom gave to me while she has still kept the three diamond and platinum rings that had belonged to my great aunts. I took it for sentiment, my mother’s mom was never wealthy, like my Dad’s aunts. She was usually dressed in cotton dresses with a cotton apron, and wore this dented ring while she cooked, and canned and cleaned. She is most remembered in our family for the way she would swear at my Grandpa, “Dammit Andy” she’d say, often enough that us kids would mimic her well into our adult years. 

Now they are all gone gone gone. None of my daughters wanted my rings, they thought the rings I wore were jinxed, bad juju, since my marriage lasted 15 years, not forever. But I know now that nothing lasts forever. Nothing. And I don’t want to turn into my mom, hoarding diamonds and platinum and constantly worrying about not having enough money. I’m trying to undo the worrying that I do do. I am changing my life yet again, and this isn’t just the outward stuff, it’s the inward beliefs. I was brought up that my beliefs were something that should be constant, something you know, to believe in. But my beliefs are not constant, they are constantly changing. Shifting like the sands, rolling like the ocean. 

As beautiful and meaningful as ritual can be, it can also tie us to beliefs about ourselves and others that can never be true. As beautiful as sparkly rings with diamonds can be, (especially under the lights in a jewelry case), they are no guarantee of the purity of our love, or our value, or of the longevity of our relationships. Once the rings were appraised, I could see that the jeweler was excited about the beauty of the diamond, which I knew he would resell for much more than $300.00. I felt sad, but also relieved. That is the nature of sentimental value. When we buy expensive items that we don’t really need, they are representative, that’s what the value is. Once they are bought, the value recedes into nothingness. 

On the way home, I voiced my worries to Megan. My left hand felt strange, even though I hadn't worn the rings in years, my ring finger felt light, empty. Maybe I should have saved the rings for Audrey, my granddaughter, and Megan assured me that Audrey has and would always have everything she needed and wanted. Another belief, that people should pass down precious things, unfurled from my head and blew out the window. What can I pass down to my children, my grandchildren? That we are valuable, that we are precious, that time is fleeting, that there is nothing, nothing, nothing, that is more valuable than each single breath that we take, and the common air that we breath, and knowing, beyond a doubt, beyond any trinket, that we are loved and cared for. 

A Short Side Story

Band of Gold

Ok, remember that song, Band of Gold? In 1970, Freda Payne sang this hit, I was 11 years old and we’d have the transistor radio blaring while we swam in my friend Kelli’s pool. Her dad was a contractor and they had an actual, in ground pool in their backyard, just down the block. It was heaven. We’d put on our suits, grab a towel, walk halfway down the block and be in her pool with half the kids in the neighborhood. Kelli’s mom was also the most beautiful, coolest mom on the block. 

The song, however, with it’s upbeat tone had disturbing lyrics for me. She sang, “All that’s left is a band of gold. . . .” I was so obsessed with love, and scared of it too. Even the movie, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), stuck with me, scared me, worried me about how someone you love could just turn on you, leave you even, or worse, be the devil. I worried as a young girl, how could you know? 

That vulnerability still is the legacy of being a girl or a woman. How could I have known about patriarchy, hierarchy, misogyny? Those are really big words for a 10 or 11 year old, and they weren't on the vocabulary list for me to look up. How could I have known that wedding rings could possibly be bands that bound many women to a submissive role in an unfair agreement? How could I have known then, that what we believe about ourselves and our world, is the most likely to come true? 

How could I have known, that when I worried about being married at all, I should have listened to that, listened to myself? I was taught not to listen to myself, but to listen to my mom, my dad, my priests, the nuns, my teachers, everyone else, but myself. I'm learning to listen to myself. I'm letting all the other words fly out of my head, out of the window. I am making room to believe in myself. 

Arrive

I woke with the sun today, ready to embrace another day and enter into the process of accepting unknowing. Sometimes the days of our lives go by in this beautiful steady rhythm which tells us life is good, life has meaning and the energy we create in this pattern sustains us. Then, we have these moments, where the energy shifts into something else and whether we’ve been creating this consciously, or less than consciously, it grabs our attention. As this energy shifts for me, I realize that I'm really struggling with staying generous. Because this isn't what we're told to do when our income stream changes-- Right? Instead, we are told to tighten our belts. Well, I don’t want to do it this way. I want to stay generous. 

Pema Chodron writes; “The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something--usually ourselves. When we feel unhappy, when we feel inadequate, we get stingy; we hold on tight. Generosity is an activity that loosens us up.”  (The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times.) I bought this little paperback book years ago, and go to it often. I hope to attain fearlessness one day, but for today, I hope that when I feel fear, I remember to open up, not close in upon myself. This is what we all must do when we’re afraid, let down our guards and embrace ourselves and embrace others. This is the opportunity that this gives us. This is the opportunity I am now sitting with, in gratitude for.  

I have more time than I’ve had in a while now to think, to ask myself; What it is that I want next, that I want now, that I want more of? What do I want to let go of? In realizing how busy I’ve kept myself the last few years, in the striving to fit into an academic place and in the striving to become a licensed therapist, how can I be gentle with myself, in the ways that I practice being gentle with others? The universe is generous beyond all measure, and in letting myself settle into this realization, I can imagine this day being enough. 至