What Money Asks Of Us (The Three Money Realities)

How to transcend Maslow's Pyramid

Money is a funny thing. We all deal with it, yet our experiences differ like night and day. We all talk about it, yet we easily feel misunderstood. It’s like we live in different ‘money realities.’

“I never cared about money,” Director Francis Ford Coppola said recently. “The money doesn’t matter. What’s important are friends because a friend will never let you down. Money may evaporate.”

First off, I respect his belief in friendship. No cynicism detected. Second, if you believe money can just evaporate, does the Law of Correspondence dictate that you will lose your fortune by spending it on Megalopolis?

Anyway, what a thing to say — money doesn’t matter. How out of touch must this sound to people working hard to pay their bills?

Well, Coppola lives in money reality number three — abundance. His statement reflects that money has already solved the problems that can be solved by money.

Because progress with money can be easily measured, it’s tempting to think it will improve our lives in a predictable way. This is not so.

Nick Maggiulli once summarized the conventional explanation of the relationship between money and happiness.

If you have a lower income, more income probably will make you happier.

If you have a high income and are unhappy, more income probably won’t make you happier.

The more money you make, the less effective it is in increasing your happiness. But I think there is more going on than declining marginal utility.

The way I see it, there are at least three ‘money realities’ — call them lack, affluence, and abundance — and at each level, the nature of money changes. At each level, money asks us a different question.

Ironically, at each level, people feel misunderstood.

Lack: They say the world is richer than ever, yet I don’t have enough money.

Affluence: It may look like I have a lot, yet somehow there is not enough.

Abundance: Because I am rich, people assume I am happy and have no problems. They look at me with envy and no longer see me as a human being worthy of empathy.