What Money Means To Me
I saw an interview recently between JK Rowling and Oprah Winfrey. JK Rowling is a billionaire author, a feat that I don’t believe any other author has accomplished solely through writing. Oprah asked her what money has done for her in life. She responded by saying that it was the simple knowledge of security that money provides that is money’s greatest blessing. She can sit down with her family and ask where they want to go for holiday. Not if they can go holiday. Not if they can take time off, or if they can afford it. Just where they want to go. And that is what money means to me: it is freedom. It is the ability to do what you want, when you want, and in the manner you want to do it in. Money is choice.
In my experience, it is only people who have substantial money that do not recognize this. I believe this makes them more prone to be less empathetic to people who do not have money, those who do not have the kind of choice in life that they do. The only people you ever really hear say money isn’t important are those who have it; anyone else will acknowledge the opposite. But people who rise up from poverty, those who acquire great wealth later on in life, like JK Rowling, recognize the freedom that money grants. I suppose it is the responsibility of such people to teach their children this lesson so they don’t take that freedom for granted.
I have been working since I was 15. I was blessed enough to receive an all tuition scholarship and I currently live at home, so my expenses are minimal. This has allowed me to save an amount of money, far more considerable than what most people my age have access to in their personal funds. I want my money to grow though. I don’t know yet what I will do with it, but I know that I want to reach that kind of mindset that JK talked about.
