money & the elusive sleep

well its 3:30am and i cant seem to feel tired. jet leg set in, and i guess i have no reason to feel tired since i slept in till 5pm.
the topic of money is so, well im ignorant to the facts of money. me talking about it is like me trying to tell a person how to maintain a marriage. i have never been in a marriage so i couldn't tell you, and i have never had money so i don't really know what it feels like. what i can tell you is that while i have no financial merit i do consider myself very wealthy. i have a beautiful life, wonderful friends, and gas enough to get the local coffee shop. one of my closest friends, however, has a lot of money, but they are more concerned about hoarding it then they are about spending it. i think life is all about making memories, not getting a rush from a once a month bank statement. i read somewhere that while americans are rich in money they are poor on time, and just coming back from australia i saw it for myself. in australia even though the major cities were huge it seemed like everyone knew everyone. the stores would close @ around 5 and families would go home to (i know this is a weird concept) but they would have dinner together. and actually talk!
we place so much emphasis on gathering material possessions that we forget for whom we are gathering these "things" for. we have worried so much about the stuff we need and not who we need it for. i think we should all take a break from watching our stocks rise or fall and go watch our children rise and fall on the trampoline. we need to stop kissing our boss's butt and start just kissing our wives. we need to stop worrying about what tomorrow might bring and truly live in what today may have for us.
drinking in australia seems almost to be a way of life. but it is not the alcohol that drives them to the local pubs, it is the people, the communication, the social circles, and the new faces they will inevitably meet. i wish we had that kind of community built, but aim seems to be a great way to catch up with old friends and internet dating service's (such as myspace) seemes to taken the place of actually looking suitable and developing people skills.
im rambling. i think its 4am by now. i wonder if people remember why they are going to work in the morning. they say they do it for their loved ones. but i think over time they do it for the love of money instead of money for those they love.
i just wish money was not THE main religion in this country.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It seems to me that the main reason for people to have money is to find a mate. For humans money = power = the opposite sex. Survival of the fittest in the crudest sense. People are attracted to being with someone who is financially secure. Perhaps we should all just get lobotomies and get rid of greed.
Perhaps we should learn from those on Animal Planet and just battle it out. No guns though. Just teeth and nails.
Anonymous said…
Well I work to pay the rent. Ohh and buy food. I don't think we are all as hopeless as you think. When I get a pay check I don't get giddy over the fact that money=power. I think, "well there is septembers rent.", and I put it in the bank. I am a strong believer in not needing money to have fun, and if I have found many friends to have fun with then I am not the only one. I have travel all over the world, and have seen many cultures. They are all very different and wonderful, but going and seeing those cultures should not make you want to bash your own.
Anonymous said…
Here, here Stephen. I completely agree. I just returned from seeing a few different cultures myself and it is culture shock to come back to America where we waste so much and work so hard just to sit and do nothing. If over 59% of the world's wealth is contained in 6% of the world's population and all of that 6% happens to be from America--we ought to be thinking about doing something else with our money...like helping other people eat. Not everyone has a government that allows them freedom, education, and the opportunity for prosperity. We should be looking at what can do with that money besides grow rich and fat off of it. i also noticed that Americans are very overweight. Not something you see at all in Europe or Asia. That ought to say something about our lifestyle. Well, I am going to study poverty in grad school and visit a few more places like India where resources can be developed and people can have access to what you and I are blessed with everyday....

and yeah...relationships are what its all about. we "work so hard" to have free time and what do we do with it...nothing! (a generalization, but often times true!)

Another funny quote I got off of Mars Hill Graduate School's website is from Woody Allen "Money is better than poverty--if only for financial reasons."

LoL! No one can contest that money isn't helpful, but it should not be money that makes the world go round. Maybe love could make the world go round. That sounds like a better way to go about it to me....
Anonymous said…
i kiss the ass of my boss to get a permanent postion. i cant be a merch girl for the rest of my life. i work this mundane job to have money only to use to travel and meet people. i go to the local australian pub with work mates to actually talk, instead of talking over a cubicle wall. i go to pubs with friends to catch up on the weeks events. i eat dinner with my family every night, otherwise i never see them. i own what i need and i need what i own. and a little extra to give myself a present. i owe it to myself to be happy, but in the end, who is ever truly happy? i'm forever in debt, but thats no problem to me. people walk in and out of my life too fast. thats my problem. and i hope you are not one of those people.

Marisa xo
Anonymous said…
Do you work to live or live to work?
I think the workplace is the community of America.
sakana said…
stephen.
I've just discovered this site now, another aspect of you. I am not Christian, but if God, if you are there, and brought me to this wonderful place that allows me to connect to stephen, thank you so much. I can't express how happy I am. Now I feel as if I can love my life more than before.
As for the money matter, I feel the same as you do. Japan, that's where I am from, is world-wide famous for hard-working. most of them would say, "I work because I want money, but the money for my family, the money needed for my life, so what's wrong?" not all are stock dealing or greedy, they are just ordibary Japanese people, but still I see something that isn't right. I mean, they don't know or have forgotten what happiness is really like, how close their happiness lie, even if they don't have money.
it'll be wonderful if each individual has a place where the door is always open so that people come anytime, communicate with each other, share feelings and cultures and others.
Anonymous said…
amazing.
Story of a Girl said…
it is definately an eye-opener to be in another country and see that their is actually group interactions.

And also, that they have more time despite not having the technology we have that's supposed to give us more time but actually takes away our time, our life, and our need to actually interact face to face with people. Great post :)

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