Chasing Money? Try This Instead...
Cold hard cash
We all love something about it
But it will not solve any of your long-term problems...

"Money can buy a starving man food, but it does not teach him to grow his own food"
This is what you all must understand. It's a tool, and not a magic wand that cures
I've been around extremely wealthy individuals who were clearly unhappy
And I've been around median wage earners who smile ear to ear
This tells me one thing...money does not buy happiness
The happiness is a by-product of a fulfilling life
Which money can help one to achieve
But it looks different to all of us
There's no template...
The Prisoner
I grew up middle class
And both of my parents worked
We always had money, but never in excess
That being said, my father managed his money very well
And this rubbed off on me from a very young age, but it was too much
I became obsessed with money, and my life began to revolve around making it
All of my decisions were influenced by money, and it took over control
I started saving money to buy the cool things my friends had
Not because I needed them, but so that I could fit in
And as I became older, it only got worse for me
But now, I was making life decisions
Still driven by money...
The Pursuit
I had no idea
You know, what I wanted to be
But I did know one thing, it would pay well
And that is why I decided to study finance in college
I had heard about Wall Street in the movies, and was hooked
But there was a huge problem here my friends, and it took years to notice
I was not taking anything else into consideration when making these big decisions
I never stopped to ask myself what I want to do in life, or what impact I wanted to have
Again, it was only about how much money I was going to make by doing it
Do you understand how dangerous this is? If not, I will explain...
I spent well over half a decade chasing the wrong career
That's like 5 years of driving in the wrong direction
Imagine what it takes to reverse all of that
And remove the monetary influence
Well, it has not been easy...
The Awakening
I've talked about it before
But a bad heartbreak really woke me up
And at the time, my financial situation was solid AF
I was making 6 figures, had a new car, a nice apartment, and savings
On paper, I was the perfect example of what society wanted you to become
It was also the life I chose to pursue, but then the breakup didn't let me hid anymore
At that moment, I realized all of the monetary things I had were worthless
It was the relationships and connections I had that were important
And without those, the money held no real value anymore
This is where my mindset began to totally change
And I started to see things differently
It was now me over money...
The Reversal
I hate to admit it
But this has not been easy for me
I still allow money to control a lot of my decisions today
But I am more aware of it than ever, and it's one reason I'm writing about it
Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers for you yet, but I can save you some time
And what you will find is that time is more valuable than money will ever be
How do you save time? By not letting money influence your decisions
Remember, money is a tool you can use, but won't solve problems
It also won't make you happy, if you hate what you're doing
It will just be a bandaid you cover by purchasing things
Which only pro-longs your existing bad situation
But I don't want to leave you all with nothing
So here is what has helped me...
The Lesson
Saving not spending
Sounds simple enough, but it's not
Especially with all the pressure to consume today
But it's saving money that has given me the time I needed to reset
It is what allowed me to step away, and start rebuilding my relationship with money
It is what allowed me to resign from my job, and move to Portugal back in 2017
It is what allowed me to resign again in 2021, and start my own business
It is what gave me the time to think about what I want to achieve
And it gave me time to focus on the impact I could have
That being said, I still have a lot of work to do
But saving money got me back on track
And it's given me another chance
To build the life that I want
That's aligned with me
Not with money...
With Love,
Steven Arthur George aka CannaBeMe