Life Talk: On Money, Hating Your Job & Bartering
This morning, I was catching up with an old friend about life. When we started talking about our careers, I told her how I’m juggling a good amount of jobs right now to make some extra money/pay the bills while I build my business.
“Money sucks, doesn’t it?” she asked. “I wish we could all just barter.”
“I know, sometimes I wish it didn’t matter,” I replied. “We’d all do what we love and the world would be a much happier place.”
That got me thinking about money, the history of currency, and what reality has come to. In this day and age, hundreds of people “do what they gotta do” to pay those bills, even if it means sacrificing their own happiness.
Business executives work 60, 70, even 80 hours a week to support their families, young woman pass on their “dream job” in order to take something more “safe” (i.e. higher salary) and hundreds suffer from stress, anger, and even depression all over one thing: M-O-N-E-Y.
Imagine if we lived in a world where money wasn’t a thing, where everyone simply did what they loved and bartered their way through life. Mind you, that may be living in a fantasy world, but imagine how much happier everyone would be.
The creative who got to spend every waking hour taking immaculate photographs, the free spirit who could make a living off traveling the world, the talented baker who could finally open that gourmet breakfast nook. Sadly, many of these dreams are smashed due to money: not knowing how to spend it, fearing it or not having enough of it.
While money undoubtedly has its perks, it also makes people doubt themselves or feel as if they are defined by a paycheck.
Why can’t be simply go back to the stone age when people bartered in sea shells? Now that’d be interesting…
What are your thoughts on money? If money wasn’t necessary, how would you be spending your time?
