The Universe Blesses Our Obsessions

May all yours be profitable.

The Three Flavors of Personal Finance Advice

This article was originally published by Technorati on 30 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

U.S. News offers some great money management advice in a recent article called 8 Questions for the Constantly Broke. Advice about money fits generally into three categories: practical, philosophical and spiritual. Most articles like this one focus on the practical without addressing the other two.

Practical Practical financial advice focuses on one question: how can I live within my means? Most, including the U.S. News article, recommend things like skipping daily latte's, buying used cars instead of new and reminding us that we're earning now not just for now but also for future rainy days and retirement. They preach that we should not be stupid with our money, in other words.

Monetize Your Life: 6 Steps Toward Doing What you Love

The term "monetize" came to me in relation to the internet. A friend of mine involved in the creation of websites explained to me that internet entrepreneurs operate by coming up with ideas for websites, putting them out there and generating traffic on them. Only then do they look for ways to "monetize" them; that is, make money from them.

And thus the website reaches it's full, sustainable potential as a website in monetary terms. But what about people? How do they reach their full, sustainable potential as people?

Maybe there's a lesson here. Perhaps this is the way anybody trapped in a job that isn't their true calling can make a move to one that is--just start doing it! Figure out how to make money at it later.

Counter-Intentions

It's interesting how things come together. I've always wanted to move from Naples up to Rome, but the challenges of such a move have always seemed daunting.

This morning, my friend who lives in Rome called to tell me he knew of an apartment that might be right for me. I agreed to come take a look at it this weekend, but at the same time, a pang of impossibility hit me right in the solar-plexus. It told me quite clearly, "Nice idea in theory, but it just can't be done."

This sort of thinking has always plagued me, I now realize. It sends conflicting messages to the universe, so to speak, as to exactly what it is that you want, so you stand no chance of bringing that idea into being. The initial creative thought--I'd like to move to Rome--is completely negated by the destructive thought--it's impossible.

This has always plagued me, but now this negativity has bubbled up to the surface. Unconscious thoughts have become conscious; their days of destroying what I would create are numbered (see Conscious Backgammon).

"Magical Thinking" a Slur Against Enlightenment

Whenever you hear someone use the term "magical thinking," beware! You're dealing with an intolerant Aristotelian, a person who cannot conceive or concede that there may be a philosophical conception of the world (e.g. Platonism or even pre-Socratic philosophy, see The Philosophy of Success, elsewhere on this blog) other than his or her own (i.e. Aristotelianism).

This intolerance stems from their blind adherence to the law of causation, which makes it doubly important for the person of faith to develop an understanding of occasionalism (see The Law of Cause and Effect a Tenet of Faith elsewhere on this blog).

More commonly, people profess Aristotelianism but practice Platonism. For example, you never hear rich, famous, powerful people declaiming against visualization, which is a Platonic principle (see the Visualization of Success, elsewhere on this blog). This is because they couldn't have reached their lofty position without it--it cannot be otherwise.

The Visualization of Success

What is Visualization?

Visualization is the process by and through which everything comes into being in our lives, both good and bad. Visualization is in our nature; it's simply a quality that all human beings possess. We are doing it all the time.

Therefore, we need not worry about the mechanics of visualization. They operate automatically. The more salient concern is the service to which this wonderful, creative faculty that we possess is put. On this question there are two options. We can either use this tool in service to our own egos or in service to The Good (see The Philosophy of Success for a discussion of this assumption).