Why Aren’t More People Talking About Finance?
Who else is frustrated about this? You’re not taught about it in school. You can’t discuss it at home. Your friends might make a joke or two about it but get tight-lipped at anything further. You’ll see the trappings of luxury goods on social media – fast cars, brand clothes, fancy interior decorating – but never the cold hard facts. Sure, it’s a difficult topic, but so is politics and religion – and everyone is eager to offer their opinions on those topics when asked. But not money.
That silence is leaving us all worse off.
The Reason Behind the Silence
In a relationship, finances are even more intimate than sex. I’m not talking out of my ass either, this is a widespread phenomenon. There is strong evidence that your financial stability and prospects are a heavy barometer for your relationships; in fact, the most common reason for divorce is due to money.
In that light, being so tight-lipped about money makes sense. People don’t want to be disliked nor pitied, especially not by those they admire or want to impress. You risk either one no matter your net worth, income level, or amounts you owe.
However, this refusal to talk about finance is hurting everyone. Folks with low incomes don’t see a way out to better success. They get angry, they feel helpless, they feel isolated and abandoned by the world at large. Because they don’t know how to get out of the cycle of poverty they find themselves in, it has the power to continue on and on.
Folks with high incomes suffer, too, if they don’t know how to build their savings; millions of them are one paycheck or minor setback away from disaster. Using the label “high-earning poor” is accurate here, as they’re without the financial know-how to be able to rely on it.
Even the ultra-rich are hurt by this.
“Huh, Darcy?”
Yep, I’ll repeat: the ultra-rich are also hurt by the lack of money talk.
“They’re the ones that benefit the most from the rest of us knowing jack shit!!”
You’re right, and they know it. That’s the thing: the ultra-rich know they don’t deserve their riches. They crave the prestige and the admiration that comes with it, along with the deep envy it inspires from the common man. They like inspiring such passion from others. They also don’t know how much is enough, as disconnected from the world as they are. They become like dragons hoarding gold in some airless cave, not even realizing what they’re missing out on to the detriment of everyone else.
So let’s change that. If you knowing about money will make it somehow worse for them, that’s not society’s problem. We really need to take down the biggest taboo in society by opening up about how to make ourselves financially stable, if not obscenely rich. Yet the shame, resentment, greed, and wrath money tends to rouse ends the conversation before it begins.
How to Open Up
Actually being able to discuss finance in a calm and logical manner is supremely tough for most. Even knowing where to talk about finance is a big struggle. For something that’s best handled coldly and emotionlessly, there’s nothing else with more emotion wrapped around it. The first step is always one of the hardest, and that step is first acknowledging that being good with money is HARD. The difficulties discourage people from going for financial success, believing that success to be a futile endeavor.
Unless you’ve gotten five figures or more starting out, your success will not be comfortable. If you pursue financial stability you’re going to run into tough upsets, and they might break you. I’m sorry this is the way things are. I’m also sorry for any pain you’ll feel or any tears you shed. But I won’t be sorry to see the results of that pain, and neither will you.
Not when the results will give you a better night’s sleep, more time, more energy, and so little stress you feel like a different person. If you don’t feel like you can open up to people around you, why not open up here in the comments or with an email? Helping more people my age get here is the reason I’m writing online in the first place! Let’s learn off of each other and keep climbing up the mountain.
You guys remember my mountain metaphor from this post, right? It’s my favorite way to visualize my journey to this low-stress existence. And I’m not even up at the mountaintop yet! I’ve just got a base much higher up than you might, and I’m waving to you from my camp and gesturing that you join me. If you’re at the base of the mountain still, then consider this your bottom.
A solid foundation.