A friend of mine built a custom house a few years ago. Among the upgrades and extras, she paid to have a gourmet, top of the line kitchen installed. It has all the stuff a true chef would want. Commercial grade appliances, a huge walk in pantry, wine bar, commercial sink, storage for all manner of pots, pans and utensils, and enough counter and island space to prepare a meal for a football team. Don’t get me wrong: It’s all beautiful and impressive. But it added a huge amount to the house, both in terms of cost and square footage that costs money and time to maintain.
When I asked her why she needed this impressive, expensive kitchen, she said, “Because I want to be a great cook. There are so many recipes I want to try and things I see online, I just want a great kitchen to do it all in. I’m retiring soon and I just want to cook.” I was surprised because I had no idea she harbored secret chef dreams. For all the time I’ve known her, most of her “cooking” has been heat and eat-type stuff, or Doordash. Sure, there’s the occasional pie for the holidays, but nothing extravagant.
You can probably guess where this is going. It’s been +/-3 years since “The Kitchen” appeared and the house was finished. My friend has yet to make anything more than she ever did. Dinners are still mostly heat and eat, Doordash or, now that they’re retired, eaten out at restaurants. (Or on cruises, or at hotels, or at restaurants in new cities since they travel a lot and are rarely home.)
“The Kitchen” did not make her into the cook she wanted to be. It sits, underutilized and kind of sad. Now she laments that she has to clean all that space and maintain all that stuff. “The Kitchen” is there if she ever wants to cook great meals, but what is lacking is her will to learn how to do it. Without that, all the swanky kitchens in the world will not make her into the cook she imagines herself to be.
Okay, so maybe the headline of this article isn’t exactly right. After all, money can buy you some things that may help you become who you want to be. You can buy education, for example, and use that to get a better job or career. You can buy tools and use them to become better at something, or learn new skills. But money by itself does nothing to change who you are. The kitchen could help my friend become a great cook, but not by itself.
Becoming who you want to be requires actual work. Want to be a great cook? Use the money to buy some basic classes before investing in a commercial kitchen. Want to be a writer? Take some classes and write some stuff in notebooks before investing in a top of the line laptop and publishing software. Want to be an artist? Learn to paint or draw before turning your spare room into a studio complete with top of the line supplies. Want to pursue a sport? Try it out at the rec league level and see if you’re any good before you invest in professional equipment. Want to make videos? See what you can do with your phone’s camera before investing in a huge camera and editing bay.
We tend to get our timelines mixed up and think that we need all the top of the line stuff before we can do anything. (I blame marketing that tells us we can never succeed without all the stuff.) But this is the wrong way to go about it. Only once you know that this is who you want to be, and that you show some talent (or at least love) for something, should you invest loads of money into anything. By then you are on your way to becoming that “insert thing here” and a little investment can help you move to the next phase. But buying the stuff because you think you want to be “X,” or because others are doing it, or because you saw it in a cool TikTok is just wasting money.
Even if we move beyond career and skill-type items, money still can’t make you into a different person. (Although it can buy therapy, which can help you recognize what to change and how to change it.) It definitely can’t change your personality. It can’t make you generous. Sure, you might have more to give with money, but if you’re not a generous person, money likely won’t change that. Money can’t make you popular or cool, no matter how many “in” brands you buy. It can’t make you happy or fulfilled, or make you feel loved or respected. You can throw all the money in the world at these kinds of things and it still won’t change who you are deep inside. Sure, you might look better, but who you are inside requires more than money to change.
Becoming who you want to be requires a lot of work. You work on things like your talents and gifts by learning and practicing and putting your work out there. You try and you fail, over and over again. Your personality changes when you actively live the values you claim to want. If you want to be generous, you give your time or talent long before you have money. If you want to be loved or respected, you act in ways that earn that love and respect. You don’t try to buy a new personality, you remake yourself from the inside.
Money can buy tools to help you along your journey, but money itself is not the end of the journey. Simply throwing money at things will never make you who you want to be. Don’t be like my friend and waste a ton of money chasing who you want to be. Only spend the money when you know without a doubt who you already are. And once you’re there, chances are you’ll find that you don’t even need to spend (all) the money, because who you already are is good enough.
Read More:
- Consuming Hobby Content Can Be Financially Dangerous
- Stop Wasting Money and Get All That You’re Paying For
- 10 Important Things That Money Can’t Buy
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Image and article originally from www.savingadvice.com. Read the original article here.