If you’ve ever stood in front of a cashier silently begging for your card not to decline, then you have an idea what it ultimately means to live without means. As much as you can fake a rich lifestyle, your card unfortunately is incapable of that ability. What you have is what you get.
True Story…
I once met a girl who swore that life has been so good that she didn’t know what to do with money but five minutes later, standing behind her at the ATM, the machine read “insufficient funds”.
It’s even easier now to not only fake a lifestyle, but to actively and constantly live above your means. In a way it is seductive, and once you start it’s hard to stop.
Today I want to give a different narrative to living with & within means. First of all, for the next 2 minutes, let’s put aside the notion that living within means somehow disqualifies you for the YOLO life. To live within means is to have the means, but more importantly to have priorities.
When we lose a sense of what’s important we are at the risk of falling into peer pressure, proving to people we don’t even like that we’re doing well, and being in constant debt.
The Holistic Approach
There’s no time to discuss the signs of living above one’s means or the solution. Rather we’ll be taking a holistic approach, the interconnectedness of things. E.g the saying that we’re the average of our 5 friends. Meaning our choices, though ours, are influenced by forces outside of our control. In that case, saving a little more, creating a budget, eating in, might not necessarily be helpful. The means doesn’t matter as much as the end result. So yes, I’m of the opinion that the end justifies the means. I’ve heard about people that look poor but are actually wealthy. In this case would you say the means justifies the end? Living within means in my opinion is enjoying life, it’s yolo but rooted in priorities. I know I have 5million, a million naira bag will look good on me so I buy it, ‘because I can’ Vs I’m saving for the rainy days so I don’t buy the bag and instead I buy a 30k bag.
While it is great to save and highly recommended, being stingy to oneself will always extend to other parts. If you don’t spend, you don’t receive. If you don’t give, you don’t get. This is the holistic approach. It is about seizing opportunities as they come as against planning for mishaps. What you plan for and place in your subconscious, has a little way of manifesting itself in real life.
The End Result
In the end, let your heart guide you more than anything. What feels right to you, do that. From personal experience I can tell you that living above your means will have you in external debt, and living below will have you in internal debt. The balance is living with(in) your means.
Live within means, means you don’t borrow, you’re not greedy, and most importantly you’re enjoying life as against suffering for the rainy days. You are not faking a lifestyle, you’re taking life as it comes and living in the present while opening your energetic vibration for the universe to return the same energy back. Guess what, most often you get better than what you planned.
There’s a part in the Bible that says “has any one of you added a day to your life by worrying ?” (Luke 12:25). We have little control of what happens to us externally, but we have all the control of how we choose to respond or interpret it. Of-course all of this is subjective, and also may or may not be applicable to certain people, e.g you’re a parent.
In the end, let your heart guide you more than anything. What feels right to you, do that. From personal experience I can tell you that living above your means will have you in external debt, and living below will have you in internal debt. The balance is living with(in) your means.
Final thoughts…
For the intellectuals, what do you think Oscar Wilde meant when he said “Any one who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination”?
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