What is that you are actually earning?

We continue with this article the reflection on how much you are actually earning and how to evaluate it correctly.

Thousands and thousands of people, who are earning the same amount of money as you are, keep their job to survive; they fatten the bank accounts of high level managers and stockholders. As the years go by, you realize that to realize something slightly more interesting, for example to buy a new car or send your children to a good school, or buy a house, you will have to enter the debt spiral, if you are not been already caught in it.

We can say, therefore, that instead of getting a liberation, instead of increasing the quality of your life, you will add more bars to your cage, and your choices dwindle meanwhile your hourly pay remains the same. The answer to the same question ‘How much do you earn’ will then differ from a simple figure.

Now you understand the obsession for the material goods and the bodily pleasures reinforces the prison you are in, your slavery. Now you might start thinking that is the cure of soul which will offer you the chance for a liberation. As Seneca once wrote: wealth and vices must be put under the reason which knows limits and borders and not under the addiction, which is infinite: Greed is never satisfied, nature needs little. When you wish to know how much you earn, you need to know how much you are losing. Before giving away your life, remember that time is not itself life. Start thinking how and with what you fill your days. Are you giving your to life to that what is worthwhile? You must discern the deceptive satisfaction from the true one, and this latter can never be uniquely material.

To go back to our initial example, if you wish to earn more you must consider the basic unit that serves to calculate your salary. Furthermore, you must consider also your deepest values, i.e. that what is worth living for. If we are made of flesh and soul, bones and mind, blood and spirit, why are we worried only for the material aspect of our nature? Mental and spiritual progress and evolution last beyond time: if the satisfaction of one night gives you the impression you have reached a form of serenity, you know well you are fooling yourself! Soon you will be anxious again, looking to repeat the same form of satisfaction; you are therefore addicted and not satisfied as you are feeding only the body and not the mind.

Have a nice day!