I am one of those sorry souls that are subscribed to a gazillion of e-newsletters, which fill my Inbox with the nonchalance of a beautiful woman who dresses in see-through clothes in a hot summer day. I gladly and willingly want my Inbox full of silly spam. Oh, don’t be so Freudians. I said spam.
Among the emails that I am subscribed to are the Ching, what happened today in the history, Zen and Buddhist prayers, Evolutionary Psychology newsletter, today’s words of wisdom; but also the latest updates in the high-tech world, the most amazing gadgets and coolest websites, super reviews of the latest cell phones on the market, “I cannot conceive my life without a laptop” newsletter, the most modern LTE and 4G technologies, and of course Calvin Klein men underwear-oh, oh, oh, Victoria’s Secret-of yeah, oh yeah-and how else, recipes about duck breast with orange, and dark chocolate and bitter orange mousse. Boring still very instructive, pretty much like all the knowledge we accumulate in our lifetime and we end up vomit in pseudo-erudite torrents at some corporate party, just for the fun of breaking the ice.
However, one of these emails that occupy a part of my daily life was about money (ka-ching) and got me thinking of the reproach most men these days make to women, almost accusing them of “being materialistic and money lovers and forgetting all about good ol’ luv”. Ahem.
Hold on, hold on. Don't get all uncomfortable in the chair. Why do we feel uneasy every time we speak of money? A cognitive scientist was saying that he found it difficult to negotiate the price with a shopkeeper in Tunisia and he advised the travelers to think about their own social behavior. "If you are the kind of person who is cooperative in conversation and who does not like to feel as though you have insulted others, find a negotiation partner. Bring along someone else who will drag you out of the store or shop before you spend too much. That is, fight social pressure of one kind with social pressure of another”.
With this particular thought in mind we might as well hire permanently a "negotiation" partner every time we go for a job interview and we haggle about our ulterior paychecks. Normally, our cooperativeness in conversation should suffice to help us obtain what we want: either we pay the price we have in mind, without giving in to the salesman’s persistent looks, or we leave the shop with no remorse. The short term interaction we have with the shopkeeper is not enough to make us have behavioral remorse or post decisional stress once we leave the shop. Now, if we negotiate with a dear one and we are in the middle of a tradeoff over who gets the Porsche and who gets the Poodle, a negotiating partner (or a lawyer) is an advisable company.
Reverting to the thorny money issue. That cool money email was saying “Money is not good or bad, it is neutral. It has the value that you or society attributes to it. It's a very easy to use exchange medium and if you are living in western society you cannot survive without it. If you have more money you have more choice in life and do not need to concern yourself with issues of survival. This leaves you room to pursue other issues such as your personal growth.
Don't fall into the trap of neglecting money matters on the pretense that money is not spiritual. People who have money are in a much better position than the rest of the population to help others. Just look at how much money some of the worlds richest people donate to charity.
If you think that you should abandon your possessions and money to somehow become better or to find your spiritual side, then let me tell you that's just a complete load of crap. To walk the spiritual path and move towards enlightenment you need to be detached from the emotions that link you to needing money and possessions”.
I couldn’t have said it better! I made no secret of my pragmatic-realistic oriented character which seemed to bring a specific amount of offense to my male and exclusively spiritually oriented readership and friends.
At a certain point, I reminded men that they should wake up and smell the coffee (a Mocha Star Bucks, if I recall correctly) motivating with an old but nevertheless wise proverb that love goes through the stomach.
Now, love lasts three years, said Beigbeder, and only two, said the scientists.
Love itself is overrated. So are: honesty (which sometimes kills our reputation), justice, truth, charity…
Many women these days are way too willing and way too hasty to assure men that the money is not important in a (desperate) attempt to:
1) Hook up, mate, match, pair, suppress solitude just to spite society, family, friends or statistics which mercilessly claim that globally, women are more numerous than men;
2) Lift some customary burden off modern men’s atrophied shoulders;
3) Foolishly hoping that love (or whatever they think love is) will compensate for: lack of material comfort, lack of muscles, lack of physically fitness or brains;
4) Also thinking that nowadays women can make enough/at least as much money as men, so the role reversal can be easily supported and accepted by the modern and weak man.
The naked truth is:
1) No matter how modern and open-minded the man, unless he is a depraved bumblebee, he will never accept to be deprived of the ancient custom of providing for the (potential) mother of his offspring.
2) If he does accept-due to the present temporary financial crisis- he will end up resenting the woman. Maybe will not explicitly express it but with the first occasion he will definitely blast out. It is mere psychology and we cannot defy Mother Nature.
3) The woman, no matter how strong and leader oriented, will end up despising and disrespecting the man as it is encoded in her DNA that the man needs to be capable to care, cater, nourish, feed, provide for, and most over PROTECT her and her (potential) offspring.
When women fall in love and fail to acknowledge the course of nature, a disaster is set on its course. However, what they don’t know is that Mother Nature makes us fall in love with a man and his status as well. Try to imagine the rich guy you fancy without a penny and let me know if you find him as attractive. Or, add a few tens of thousands of $ to some uglish guy and see if he doesn’t suddenly seem more handsome. It is OK, don’t worry. It’s your genes.
Money is ultimately freedom as long as you don’t make a purpose out of it, but use it as means to satisfy your needs. Some might give me as example the illuminated beggar monks, or the Indians that eat roots and live in ashrams in the Himalayas. Yeah, sure, whatever.
So whoever thinks loves goes through the stomach, it is probably right.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Money is awfully important as it gives you faster, easier and better access to:
a) superior education;
b) important and rare books;
c) better health conditions, medical services, latest vaccines and medications that can save the life of a dear one;
d) more opportunities to travel and meet people thus improving yourself spiritually;
e) giving more money to charitable projects since you are so willing to be a superior human and help mankind;
f) fund scholarships for bright children;
g) and basically fulfill your ultimate purpose of helping your fellow human beings.
Next time you say money it is not important and you have a dying relative that needs an urgent surgery that costs a quarter million bucks, think about it.
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