What Money Cannot Buy: Where I Found Magic.
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I do remember.
They wanted framed plans and wise forecasts — controlled explanations and budgeted intents.
Let’s make sure we don’t get too much implicated into life. Let’s make sure we keep everything under control. While walking on that road called Life, they wanted to be certain they had pre-planned all the steps and all of their future moves for the next five, ten or twenty years.
They had already known who they wanted to be and what they wanted to do at the age of 15. Or maybe when they were 18, but only for the ones who were really late. Yes, they were nothing but geniuses.
No, they wouldn’t recognize the value of experience and of the lessons life gives us, as bunches of flowers or clever novels along our paths. They wouldn’t need to try things, they simply knew, all-knowingly.
Above all — and that’s what I remember the most intensely — they did want money.
They wanted money more than anything. Money to surpass their friends or parents. Money to show they were making some kind of progress, climbing the stairs of Life. Money to buy the ostentatious, money to show their value, money to hide their flaws, money to embellish their inner-selves or ordinary traits behind things.
As if money could prevent us them from growing, from developing our priceless inner features.
I also remember that they wanted a scheduled life. With everything organized. Office hours, holidays at the same dates each year, houses bought all at the same age, children produced simultaneously,
Please, let’s make sure we don’t go out of tune compared to our entourage.
I also remember their judgments, their roses’ thorns, scorching flames concealed behind made-up smiles — their beautiful masks. Yes, of course, they did look good in society. If you use decorum and manners, while saying what is expected and going where the wind blows, it works well.
Well, I also remember I could have literally died if I had went on like this.
I needed to take it all away, to unlearn what they had taught me. I had to break the shell in which I had settled down. I was imprisoned in a small box, embellished with the glittery shallow and the common society’s expectations. Give me some fresh air.
Yes, we all looked blissed, happy and comfortable inside. We even seemed at peace. But for me it was a struggle, and I was constantly fighting. Fighting to find the courage to go outside.
Out of the shell, Life seemed to present so many unexpected flavors, so much beauty to catch, so many things to try, so much to learn about myself and about us. I had to stop wasting it, and give it a try. My try.
Yes, originally I had tried to stay inside. To find my place there. To make their rules mine, progressively attiring myself in finery, and it was not that difficult to achieve.
You simply need to deny your inner self, abandon your convictions, true interests, your deepest and most powerful dreams. What truly turns you on to wear, step by step, beauties visible on the outside — the conspicuous beauties of our times.
Well, it was not that tricky, once you know the rules. The mold is not that hard to get into.
You keep quiet about your inner own sparkles, to put on glittery things you bought. I know I could have done that, but I would have slowly and gently died, showing more and more superfisive (superficial and expensive) glittering attributes.
I am not saying we don’t need money to live, of course we do. But not that much.
The more they told me money would set me free, I could understand even less. And I still cannot truly understand that view. Because all the time we were spending to earn it, life was going on, time was flying — while we were not making the most of our lives.
We were not freely shaping our paths, but striding across the common road.
Yes, we were the audience of our own lives — simply performing what the system was expecting from us. We were nothing but dull numbers, or wan copies, among the long list of the people of our times.
I needed to transform this understanding into action. Fear — fear of dying there covered with superfisive assets — into the soldier’s boldness and strength. I decided to shatter the shell and its golden prison. To go outside and figure out what I would find.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”. ~ Anaïs Nin
That’s where I found magic.
I went on fantastic roads. They were not amazing because they were easy. They were not.
They were not wonderful because they were embellished with things, cobbled with what money can buy. They were lovely because of the people I found on the way.
Among these, I found myself, and I still find new pieces of the puzzle each day. I got to become the driver of my own life, its main stakeholder. Choosing the experiences I want to get in and the people I want to feel around.
Well, I got lost many times on that road.
Out of the shell, we have got nothing but ourselves to get our bearings. Outside the main track, no road signs are given. Nobody tells us where we may get in one, five or ten years. We need to follow the signs of the Universe, to turn into an interpreter of signals.
But we build our way. Therefore, I am pretty sure that always, in every moment, the best is yet to come. Of course, there will be other victories to steal, wars to bump into. No, that is not an easy road, but do we truly like easy ones?
Why shall we be confident about breaking the shell? Because outside, we find our true-selves. Our achievements, our losses, will be ours, not everyone’s.
We reach inner peace, feeling responsible for our own lives, and free, and this has no price.
*****
Sophie Gregoire is a thinker. You may often find her with a new idea or a new concept to explain, holding a notebook and pencil. Also found reading and writing, she is more than anything an independent soul. She enjoys traveling and getting lost in new places, namely in Asia. She says it helps understanding our worlds, its people and the humankind. She loves writing to transform her endless thoughts into some kind of reality, and to keep the little piece of sanity she still has. She savors coffee, encounters, Yoga and meditation, and cats… while her own cat is her greatest muse! You could contact Sophie via Facebook and on her writing page.
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