Dear Money
I appreciate you for who you are, and I am sorry for taking your name in vane, curse or disdain. I have always been fascinated with you, and for a long time we have a mutual attraction. Growing up, I never felt that I did not have enough money to cover my exuberant lifestyle. I started counting you when I was just a little kid – spending shop time in the cash registry counting coins in Dads paint store. He did not find the same fascination with you as I did. Or so it seemed. You were shining, aged, newly minted, wrinkled, memorable. To me you represented great fortune, with the face of Kong Harald, the King of Norway, adoring every single one of your perfectly round mints. I counted, stacked, spread out and weighed you in my full awe and appreciation.
When I grew older, I started to count on Money. I knew you could do wonders for my hobbies, for my weekends, for my self-esteem and outwards look. With you in my hand, I could get wisdom and vices through books and booze. For wisdom I could always borrow a book. But the difference between buying a book and loaning it at the library was like heaven and hell. No return date, no restrictions. I could doodle, highlight, even rip out pages. For vices, you were so pliable. Cigarettes, beers, herbs or speeding. Anything could be had, anything could be paid off. Dear Money – you offered me freedoms that that I loved, and freedoms I abused.
You were always so easy, always available. You were my most loyal friend with benefit. And I probably took advantage of you from time to time. I spread myself thin for you. I forwent my education for you. I made myself sick for you. But how could you know. It was I who did all these things. You only came to me when I called for you. When I look back at my late teens and my early twenties, I see materialism, escapism, addiction and shamelessness. I look back not in shame, but with an open and forgiving heart. Not for you, but for myself. So you know – you have nothing to be forgiven. It was me and my folly who got me into that mess. And I want to ask your forgiveness for dragging you into it.
We used to have a very intimate relationship you and I. I studied you, I played with you, and I worked with you. Day and night, every day of the week we were deep in the books, ledgers or computer programs balancing the act of debit and credit. My job was to be a gatekeeper to you. I was Julius Cæsar sitting on my high chair deciding whether or not people were worthy of getting lines of credit. This position always felt a bit awkward, to be honest. I was like the Hindu goddess Kali, deciding peoples fate. My line of work was consumer loans, so the fate was more or less consumption. More or less money in the bank. More or less money for the bank. We played well together, I was highly praised for my judgement. I was even offered a promotion to the finance department. But it was our time to part.
It is my understanding that our relationship changed when I went on a long trip. Before I had worked day and night to save up money. Enough to take me from Norway and back through the jungles of South America, over the volcanoes of Central America and onto the islands of the Caribbean. I was a blessed half year with tremendous learning, insights, encounters and revelations. All made possible with the blessed assistance of you. I did not much have to worry about money, budgets or limitations. When I finally expended all my money I called my mother to borrow some more. I had never learned the limits of money. I had never respected you the way I should.
When I returned from the trip I was without you, and I went to Copenhagen to study you some more. Here I did not find you so accessible anymore. Something must have changed on my long trip, because I did not care that much for material stuff anymore. I did not enjoy consuming the way I used to. I did not use you the way had. I tried calling on you, but you did not answer me like you had before. I kept relying on my parents for you. I could not for the life of me regain a steady access to you anymore. Here and there I was luck to pick you up. But I was not geared to play your games anymore. I had built up a resentment towards you. I blamed you for all my vices, for my mishaps and my addictions. I probably called you names you never deserved. I cursed you for being so easy, so pliable, so open and enabling. But of course, it was not you. It was me. You were only being you, and I was mindlessly misusing you.
We had many years apart, scarcely seeing each other. My relationship with you affected not just myself, but also my relationships. My perceived lack of you made me access you through friends and loved one’s. Because of this you got into an uncomfortable position. Carrying negative energy between myself and the people I cared about, dragging them into my loathing of yourself. In reality I loathed myself. I learned a lot from this period in my life. I learned a new way to cook, a simpler way. The way of all the people that does not have such an intimate relationship with you. I learned to enjoy other aspects of reality, where you are not required to open doors, stay on course and being returned home safe and sound. It taught me to take more responsibility of myself. And finally, it taught me to respect you again, so that you would step into my life again.
Because Money, you are the most wonderful thing. When you are allowed to be yourself, you light up the skies, you open my eyes, you taste so nice. When I deal with you respectfully, consciously and intentionally, you allow me to be the best version of myself. You facilitate the spreading of love and high vibrations. You give unrelentingly and non-discriminatory. You are of service to each and every one of us, accessible limitlessly.
Today I ask you once again, most humbly, to help me out. I am finally ready for you, for what feels like the first time in my life. I will treat you right, not call on you day and night. Simply let your marvelous frequencies bath my reality from now until my light goes out. I have so many things I want to accomplish with you, so many beautiful things we can build, and serve and surprise the world with. I will be your biggest fan, and you most trusted custodian. I will never take you name in vane again. And if I do, know that it is me, and not you. I apologize Now for what has been, what is and what will be that is not of the highest good for all.
Bless you money for being so abundant in my life.
