I can’t let it go. Since my last blog I’ve been spending more and more time testing out my theory that if we put relationships first and money second many of our problems would be solved. I’ve share it with everyone I meet and so far no one has told me that I’m totally off base. The more they think about it, the more they find their own life examples that support my thinking. What do you think? Can you find examples in your life where if you had put money second, you would have done something different?
I’ve been thinking of my own money vs. relationship stories. Unfortunately, the list of when I put money first is just as long as the regrets that go with it. Simple things like going back to work after 6 weeks instead of staying home with my newborn sons. Or, going to New York with a client instead of being at my son’s 5th grade graduation. Not an important graduation but years later what matters is the lost time with my son.
Luckily, I can find some times when I did choose relationship over money and I can smile over those. Like deciding to take a risk and quit my job to open my own accounting firm so I could work with clients my way. (There’s a reason the tagline for the firm became “where people count”.) Or really taking a risk and selling my share of that same firm so I could work to “change the way people think about money”. Both times money took a back seat and I’ve never regretted it.
So I ask you, what’s your story? When did you put money first and relationship second or vice versa? How did it play out for you? Care to share?
Still contemplating…
3 thoughts on “Think About It”
Hi Jane. Money and relationships have long been my focus of healing. But most recently my relationship with poverty became a priority focus in my healing experience.
My story contains alot of experience with poverty which, as you know reaches far beyond money. I was young with a lot of babies and I choose the nurturing of them over acquiring money for a long time. After my divorce I was forced to face a dire need to earn more money for a concrete living. Still, I choose people and heart connections first. I learned to give but not to recieve so I became out of balance with money very early in life.
I formed a career based on spirit and heart and although, I recieve money, I STILL give alot away!! So today my greatest goal is BALANCE.
I am the center all relating. From a stance of self love and caring I can identify the healthy way to give and recieve. Money has finally become a part of that, all in the container of love.
So what do I think should be first? QUEST FOR SELF LOVE. Sharon
Thanks, Sharon for taking the time and thought to respond so graciously. I agree. In my thoughts, relationship building begins with ourselves. It took years of working with a wise woman to get this through my thick skull and I now know that without a relationship with ourselves based on SELF LOVE, it’s impossible to build any meaningful relationship with someone else whether that is our family, community, nation or world. Using the proverbial airlines metaphor: “Put your own oxygen mask on first, then help the person next to you”!
Hello Jane,
I could not agree with you more in your relational approach, or “people first” mindset. I have written and spoken widely about the importance of building relationships as part and parcel of all our interactions in daily life–with financial commitments as much as any undertaking! Right on.