Dominguez and Robin (the authors of Your Money or Your Life - see my previous post) make a good point in regard to sharpening our focus around money, that is, in regard to increasing our money consciousness. They talk about having spiritual discipline.

“Religions, ancient and modern, and the personal growth workshops of the human potential movement all have techniques for training the mind to be here now, “in the moment.” For example, “counting breaths, keeping the attention on each incoming and outgoing breath; repeating a phrase over and over in order to focus the wandering mind…

“To this list we add another discipline designed to sharpen awareness - one that is… more easily accepted by our grounded, materialistic Western mentality than some of the more “esoteric” practices.

Instead of watching your breath, you watch your money… Keep track of every cent that comes into or goes out of your life.

I agree with these authors. This seems like an exercise that is equally difficult to do but could have just as much ability to “train” you. It’s much more rigorous than simply keeping a general budget. And if you already balance your books, do you really do it down to the last penny? If so, that’s great. It’s something I will have to work on. But I like thinking about it in this context. It makes much more sense and I can see the rewards more clearly than just doing a balancing act for balancing’s sake. This would make you spiritually accountable in some sense - which is also financially accountable, since money = your life energy.

Does anyone remember this great definition of money from the authors of the classic book Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, 1992)?

I bought this book about four years ago, read it, quickly forgot about it. I’ve picked it up again recently by a chance browsing through my local library. I think I like it even more this time. And I realize that this is the concept that I was trying to move towards in calling my blog MoneyEnergy.

Dominguez and Robin say that the “one consistently true statement we can make about money that will allow us to be clear, masterful and powerful in our relationship with it” is the idea that

“money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.”

“Our life energy is our allotment of time here on earth, the hours of precious life available to us. When we go to our jobs we are trading our life energy for money. This truth, while simple, is profound… Life energy is all we have. It is precious because it is limited and irretrievable and because our choices about how we use it express the meaning and purpose of our time here on earth” (54-55).

So I just made a list of all the jobs I can remember having done so far in my life. It’s an interesting exercise if you let it see where it takes you. I’ve had many different types of jobs, many of which I felt were frustrating and/or unimportant at the time. It presents an interesting picture of what I’ve traded my life energy for. I see now that in many of the cases, if I remember how I took a certain job, I was often doing it based on what was convenient or easy or what just happened to “fit” at the time. I’m much more conscious of what I will trade my waking hours for now.

Most of us buy money with our time. We put actual hours in at work. We trade our time - our life energy - for the pieces of paper and coins we call money. What will you use this money for? It should represent a fair trade on your waking life. Are you squandering away your waking life? Does your life energy dissipate - so that you don’t know where it all goes?

The authors have a complex 9-step plan for becoming more conscious of and controlling your life energy. But here are two simple steps: record every cent that comes into your life, and every cent that leaves your life. Do this at least for one month so that you can clearly see where your life energy is going. Does it represent what you really want to do with your life? Is this what your life should be traded for?

The other exercise is to calculate the actual amount of $ you earn from your job and turn it into a dollar per hour amount. Include the time it takes you to get ready for work, to “relax” after work, to shop for clothes to wear to work, etc. etc. This will be your “real” salary, what you’re really trading your life energy for. You might see now that it’s even more important to be sure that you’re giving up your life for what it’s really worth.

What do you think? Have you read this book? Do you have similar thoughts or solutions?