Attention on Money and Control Leads to Loss of Freedom

by Timothy Thompson

We live in a world defined by money and control — at least that’s the world that subconsciously holds sway over our lives for most of us. We have been conditioned to accept that money and control are what make it possible to live a good life, provide for our children, and as the most sought after means to gain recognition and acceptance within our society.

To be sure, having money and control mean having power and influence, and the extremely wealthy often do hold the public’s eye more often than not. Working hand in hand with money is the exercise of control. Money doesn’t mean much if one has no control over external forces. Money is often highly prized as a way of gaining desired control over one’s privacy, life experiences, sense of accomplishment, and emotional fulfillment. We often base our happiness on on money. We often feel hopelessly unfulfilled due to a perceived lack of it.

Putting too much attention on money and control leads to loss of freedom. We feel our options are limited because we’ve already established that money equals control equals happiness equals fulfillment. When this happens for the most part, it is because we’ve bought into the idea that everyone needs to control their lives to achieve happiness and that having lots of money is the best way to get there. It’s hard to live up to the standards that others expect us to meet but it requires a conscious act of our own to begin to experience true freedom.

What are some of the ways to break this cycle of over-attention on money and control?

Giving for giving’s sake.
When you give without expectation of getting anything in return, it feels wonderful! Find ways to give more to your family, your work, your relationships, and yourself. Every situation or person demands its own pathway to fulfillment. What can you give that will further that fulfillment? Get out of the way of your beliefs about needing to maintain control or hold on to money.

Just give of yourself in some meaningful way and you will begin to shift a change in how you look at the abundance in your life that you may not have noticed before. Giving is a wonderful balance to the perils of putting too much attention on the acquisition of money or control.

Live life as an act of creation.
Human beings are born from an act of creation and live an act of creation during their entire lives. If we are conscious enough, our deaths can even become creative acts. Not many people are exercising their full creative potential, or when they do, they create haphazardly or with little alignment with their highest goals and aspirations.

It is no wonder they are unhappy. Dead end jobs, failed relationships, and numbing mediocrity are no fun at all. People do not suddenly become happy when they acquire lots of money for a simple reason: a lifetime of they are failing to work with their innate creativity will not provide the passion and excitement life requires to be well lived. You cannot be happy and uncreative at the same time unless you’ve got a couple of brain cells out of place.

The most creative persons in the world are those who allow themselves the freedom of expression in some form. Sports, the arts, business, families, community, nature, cuisine, and many others things can all serve as fertile areas for personal acts of creation. Create something and watch how your happiness meter shoots up a few degrees.

Get out of the vacuum through relationship.
Whatever vacuum you’ve created in your life in your pursuit of money or control, get out of it now! Work is fine, working an 80-hour week is not healthy, no matter how you look at it. Your relationships suffer, your health suffers, and perhaps worse than anything else, it is easy to lose sight of who you are in many important ways.

Human beings thrive on relationships. Although painful at times, all relationships with others have the potential to heal our past and evolve our future. Connect with your kids and your spouse. Find healthier ways to connect at work with the boss — ones that don’t involve Herculean hours and sacrificing other relationships — or find a new job or a boss with healthier ground rules. You’ll find that relationships abhor vacuums, and once you break the seal on your work vacuum, your other relationships will flourish.

Loosen up and play a little.
We somehow theorize that the important things in life require big decisions and monumental attitudes of seriousness. Any kid can tell you that that theory is about as crazy as adults can get. The fact of the matter is, life is not serious most of the time. Wild animals play with each other and their environments.

People play with each other spontaneously if given half a chance. Playfulness can defuse tense situations and blow off steam from the level of your living room or back yard all the way up to the largest meeting of dignitaries from around the globe. Let the love in. Find ways to be more playful with yourself and you’ll certainly discover that others want to be around you for a little playtime too.

Use freedom whenever and wherever you find it.
Most of the time, when we feel restrictions in our lives, it is because we fail to notice the tremendous power we all possess to exercise our will at any time. In this way we choose restriction and there’s no good reason why we cannot choose freedom just as easily. Nothing liberates us more than knowing we have options, no matter the circumstances. Freedom effectively breaks control issues and establishes us as effective players in a universe of change.

Together, unqualified giving, living life as an act of creation, nurturing our relationships, playing, and exercising our freedom of choice are more than enough to break the hold money and control have on our lives. It’s time to place money firmly back where it belongs as a particular kind of energy rather than as an end in itself. Doing so will loosen our desperate need to control and introduce a more natural and ever-changing form of energy into our lives.

Originally published online for Dream Manifesto in 2010.