“The things you own end up owning you.” – Tyler Durden, Fight Club
One of my best buddies in the whole wide world asked me to stop teaching him stuff, in reference to all the awesome value I am bringing here on martywong.com. He then showed me his blackberry which just has a whackload of quotes he’s yanked to keep himself in check. Awesome, awesome. I’ll keep at it, I still have lots more awesomeness to bring.
Last lesson, i spoke of the abundance mentality. In it, I describe that instead of saving your money you should be spending it as that is what a person with wealth abundance would do. However, that is probably not the greatest advice for most people in North America. I don’t remember where I heard this, but North Americans, for the first time in our history, on average spend more then we save. In other words, we are in the negative when it comes to money on average. It blew my mind when I heard this. That’s the reason the economy is all poopy in the first place. Banks giving mortgages out to people who can’t pay them back, and these people buying houses that are out of their budgets and overpriced to begin with. Madness, absolute madness. Then bailouts, oh man worst idea ever. Its this short term thinking that has put things in the pooper in the first place. But I suppose, many people can’t help it. Brainwashed, literally brainwashed we are. Get that fancy car, the big house, that beautiful family, ah the American dream. When I speak of abundance, there is something else critical to that piece of the puzzle; detachment. Because when you become detached from material goods, and live life simply, you will find that the things you thought you wanted, you no longer want. When you detach yourself from outcome, there’s a tendency for the outcome that you were hoping for to naturally occur. And if it doesn’t, no sweat, because we come from abundance, got it?
Chances are, the things you think you need, you probably don’t. The things you thought you wanted, get pretty old after a while. That thing you got that made you happy, doesn’t make you happy anymore. How do I know? Because I’ve been there, done that. I once heard somebody say that you know you have found ultimate happiness when you are in an empty room by yourself and are at complete peace and serenity. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’d say that’s a good indication you no longer have any attachments. The most conscious people in our history all carried this detachment trait. Don’t be your average North American, don’t buy that fancy watch and feel guilty you bought it, knowing you could have spent it on something more useful. Buy that watch and enjoy it for what it is, a nice fancy watch. Pay attention though, if it brings you that temporary high, you’ve got some work to do. Let’s not spend recklessly and on unnecessary items, detach from material goods, detach from outcome, and live abundantly. We are not a sum total of our wealth and goods. We are so much more, if only we could see. Are you starting to see?