The Money Trap

Where we live, there is what they call a Boom and Bust Economy.  When the money is good, it’s GOOD.  But when the money recedes, it slows to a halt.

I don’t think this is a too far off scenario for most people.  We have periods in our life where money comes to us easily, and times when money doesn’t flow so freely.  This is the natural ebb and flow of life.

Money is simply a currency, a current, that flows like energy.  There are times when we have lots of energy, and times when we are tired or have very little energy.  Times when life is good, and times when life is a little harder.  This is a natural phenomenon for us, but we forget about it when it comes to money.

So what is The Money Trap?

I’ve been privy to watch with fascination this Boom and Bust Economy cycle in action.  And here’s the real trap: money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy dopamine bursts.

Dopamine is one of the happy chemicals in our brain.  Advertisers like to trigger it to get us to buy their products, and social media uses it to keep us scrolling endlessly.  (Read: Our World is Designed to Be Addictive).  It feels a lot like happiness, but it isn’t.

Dopamine is part of a complex anticipation-reward cycle.  Specifically, dopamine is triggered when you anticipate a reward, such as happiness.  It drives you to take action, so that you can get the thing that will result in happiness.

In our world today, most often than translates to the anticipation of buying something for the result promised.

Think of an ad showing a young, vibrant group of guys and gals waterskiing behind a big boat on a beautiful summer day….

Check out this sweet vintage ad for Evinrude motors

Everyone wants to feel the kind of happiness that’s on these faces, that excellent quality social life where everyone dresses in matching white swimsuits and somehow never gets dirty.  Except, money can’t buy happiness or magically white swimsuits, so our brain automatically goes to the next best thing: the boat (or in this case, a boat motor).  If we buy a boat, we can anticipate happiness.

When we and our high-interest credit card go out and buy the boat, and now we own the boat, our brain triggers massive amounts of dopamine (which feels a lot like true happiness) in anticipation of the youthful, vibrant waterskiing we will do.

And we feel happy.

But what’s one of the Happy-ology main tenets?

Happiness really means a feeling of contentment, of fulfillment in life.

This is the type of lasting happiness we are looking for.

Because, like the Alberta economy, dopamine-happiness is on a boom and bust cycle.

We buy the boat, we get a dopamine spike which feels like happiness, but the dopamine doesn’t last.  And many times the activity (waterskiing) that we so looked forward to, doesn’t bring us the happiness we anticipated, and so it’s a let down.

To combat this let down effect, our brain goes seeking the next thing that will bring you that feeling of happiness.  Cue advertisement of youthful, vibrant guys and gals camping in a giant RV.

We start the cycle all over again: anticipate the reward, buy the thing, be let down.

And, like an addiction (because dopamine is involved in addictions too), we need bigger and bigger ‘hits’ to trigger the same feelings of pseudo-happiness.

This is the Money Trap: when we believe money can buy us happiness, and we discover that it does for a few brief moments, and so need to keep spending more and more money to trigger that same burst of dopamine–related-pseudo-happiness.

The problem: money isn’t infinite.  Neither is there an endless supply of bigger and better things you can buy.  And your brain definitely will not be able to keep up with the demand for dopamine it has to keep providing bursts.

And the deeper, more insidious problem: When money is used to buy happiness, we are not building our ability to experience true happiness.  In fact, we are suffocating it.

Now, if money is a currency of energy.  And if happiness is the conduit of energy…. The misery we create by suffocating our true happiness will also shut off the flow of money.  Whether this is through burnout, poor performance, loss of business connections, etc., it will happen.

This is The Money Trap.

And if you want to read more, I’d recommend The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist, which is probably one of the most interesting books on money, energy, and abundance I’ve ever read.

How do we avoid The Money Trap?

By understanding the difference between dopamine-burst related pseudo-happiness and real, authentic happiness.

By understanding that happiness is a feeling.  That joyful, youthful, vibrancy (or whatever is being promised) is a feeling.  It is not an object.  (In other words, in this example, the problem isn’t the boat, the problem is the expectation of what the boat can do for you.)

By connecting with the Authentic Self and releasing your Happiness Blocks, to better connect with that inner feeling of happiness, instead of having to rely on external triggers and dopamine bursts.

Remember, friends, happiness is internal!

2-3 Love

PS, check out The Soul of Money

Cover Photo by maitree rimthong from Pexels