Money Equals Love
When we think of prosperity and of creating abundance, it's easy
enough to see how working at a job that we love helps us to earn
more money then if we worked at a job we hated. We can also see
that if we add plenty of love and warm-fuzzies towards how we
treat our coworkers, bosses, employees, and customers, then it
makes sense that people will like doing business with us and
we'll again earn more money. We can understand how putting our
love into the product or service that we sell makes for a
superior product or service and therefore raises the perceived
value of that product or service. Here's the hard part... it
holds true in our personal relationships too.
How many women complain that their husbands don't spend enough
time with them? The wife complains that her husband doesn't
appear to really care about her. She thinks there is a lack of
deep emotional connection between the two of them. "You don't
say that you love me! Therefore you must not love me!" He
quickly points out that her argument that his lack of flowers
and romantic words doesn't mean that he doesn't love her. After
all, he works hard to earn enough money so that she can live in
the house they share and so that she can choose to work or shop
or raise kids or whatever it is she does with her time. She says
that she appreciates the money, but it's not the same as love.
It all can be condensed down to this... she doesn't see money as
a symbol of love the way that he does. So many men feel that all
of their long hours working to support their families is
disregarded and they're bitched at for not spending enough
quality time with her and the kids.
Time is money. That makes sense. Bosses hire employees for their
time on the job. Most people get paid by the hour or a monthly
salary. How much they get paid is determined by their expertise
and the quality of work they perform, but ultimately the boss is
paying you to do what he does not have the time to do himself.
Love is time. When you love someone, you naturally want to spend
quality time with them. You miss them when they're gone too
long. Go to any retirement home or a home for abused children.
The most important thing to these people is the personal time
that you give them. Studies have shown that teenagers who spend
a lot of quality time with their families are far less likely to
experiment with drugs and alcohol. When you volunteer your time
to a charity, a school, or a political campaign, it's because
you love what it stands for.
Time is a non-renewable resource. We have a set number of hours
each day that we can experience life. We can fritter it away
laying out in the yard on a sunny day doing nothing much or we
can organize the heck out of it making sure we live every single
moment to the fullest. Sometimes we find out in advanced that
we're sick and have x number of days, weeks, months left to
live. Usually, we have no idea how many days we have left.
So, when we give the boss our time in order to earn money for
those that we love, then we are in a way giving the loved one
our time. The husband could decide that he'd rather sit around
watching TV all day or he'd rather go fishing, but instead he
goes to work everyday so that his wife can have a nice house and
nice things to put in it. He has given her his fishing time and
his TV watching time. Yeah, he still needs to spend some time
talking and connecting on an emotional level because all money
and no romance is very lonely. However, she needs to see that he
has in a round-about way given her his time and energy. He
really is trying to give her a gift of his heart.
To illustrate the point even further, we love professional
athletes, musicians, actors, and other entertainers so much that
we'll pay a fortune to see them perform. Those highly paid
athletes are making that kind of money because we love them! If
we didn't love them, then they wouldn't get the ticket sales. It
wouldn't matter how well they threw the ball if nobody wanted to
watch them do it. Famous celebrities are rich because they have
a lot of people who love their work.
This is not to say that it's okay to give money in lieu of love,
but rather that for many men, this is their greatest symbolic
gesture. Remember too, they are hunters at heart. The caveman
had to bring in the dinner or his loved ones would perish. They
give money like women give hugs and kisses to babies. Look at
the single mom who cannot spend time with her children because
she's always working to financially support them. It's not
because she doesn't love them. Men need to remember too, that
ONLY giving money as a symbol of their love is like a woman ONLY
cooking and cleaning as a symbol of her love. Both are huge
gifts of the heart, but they are certainly not the only gifts
that are needed for a strong bond.
Money does equal love, but there are many additional forms of
love to share. Women hate to feel like they're just a paid
housekeeper, cook, and chauffeur in a relationship. Men hate to
feel like they're just a life support system for a wallet. Money
can't buy love and love alone won't create money, but the two
are able to be converted back and forth into each other. The one
can equate to the other. Love can make you prosperous, and
sometimes money means 'I love you.'
Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge