Do you know how much money is there in this world?

It’s $36.8 trillion (or 2569 Lakh Crores)

What if you get all this money? Imagine you wake up one day and your bank balance shows 2569 Lakh Crores. However, you also find that you are the only person left on this earth while every other person is missing.

All the malls, all the shops, all the movie theaters, all the entertainment parks, all the jewelry shops, all the real estate, all the fruits and restaurants and everything you can imagine is intact. It’s all available there.

So what can you do with all that money with you?

The answer is NOTHING.

You can’t do anything, because you can only exchange money with something and if you already have everything available on earth lying there and already available to you, the money just loses its role completely. That 2569 Lakh Crores with you is nothing but trash.

Coming back to our life, at the start we do not have much and money is something which can help us get access to lots of things in life. However, we move from having “Nothing” to “Something” to “Good enough” to “A lot” and then slowly “Almost everything we wanted”

In this transition over years, the importance of money comes down in our life. We already have most of the things we can wish for. You already have a house, a car, nice furniture, a second home, great vacations, eating out, etc. etc.

The Race of Earning Money

While money is very important in life, we are conditioned to think from our childhood that money is the solution to everything in life. We are subconsciously in this race of earning more and more money without setting a target. More is always better it seems.

Note that.

• There is a limited amount of food you can eat in this world
• There is a limited number of vacations you will take
• There is a limited number of houses you can live in
• There is a limited number of cars you can drive
• There is a limited number of things you need to have a great life

How much money do you need?

5 crores, 10 crores, 50 crores?

I strongly suggest that you need to target a number or a range after careful thought and then let that number define your speed. There has to be a number which is ENOUGH for you.

You will be able to lead a very good, desired lifestyle in that much money.

Trust me you will eat the same thing and dress quite in the same manner if you have 10 crores or 50 crores. Rakesh Jhunjunwala or Mukesh Ambani eats the same thing as you do.

It should not happen that you keep acquiring wealth in life, and later it turns out to be nothing more than trash.

The Dalai Lama when asked, what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

“Man.
Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

So what is the role of money in your life?

You need to define how much money you are targeting to acquire in your life. How much money is enough for you? Are you in a mindless race, acquiring all the money you can imagine and later, think where did my 60 yrs go? Or you are going to define the range which you want to acquire?

Something like “10 crores” is good enough for me once I retire. This is important because whatever time you give to earn money can potentially go somewhere else.

• If you are working later hours for money, and coming home at 11:00 pm at night, then it means that you can’t wake up early and go for an exercise.
• If you are working in some other city away from your family to earn a better income, it means you can’t spend that much time with your loved ones
• If you are away from home during festivals so that you can earn/work extra, that means you are not going to spend that particular time with your family.
• If you are not attending a wedding for your close friend, because you don’t want to lose those 6 days of a pay cut, that means that you will have that money, but then you will not have that memory of your friend’s wedding
• If you are not taking your family to a nice vacation, then you will have that money in the bank, but you won’t have something to talk about years later when your kids grow.

Just like these examples above, there are multiple instances in life, where we have to decide between using our money and exchanging it with something.

Your Target = 1000 times your monthly Expenses

A simple calculation tells us that when a person accumulates around 400-500 times of their monthly expenses, they have enough to last for another 30 yrs.

This means that if you have monthly expenses of Rs 1 lacs per month, then 4-5 crores is a reasonable corpus for you. Let’s take 1000 times? So for a person, 10 crores if enough to last his lifetime (a very high-level calculation tells us that). In the same way, you should know what amount you are targeting for yourself.

So make sure you are clear about the importance of money in your life. While we have seen that a lot of people are not working hard enough to achieve all their financial goals targets, we see that a lot of people are putting too much emphasis on earning money and spending all their limited time into the race of earning money. While earning money is not bad in itself, make sure you know how much you need in life?

Question for you

I would like to know from you – “How far are you from your target?”. Do you think money has a bigger role to play in our happiness or a smaller role? Please comment below

Note: Note that I am not saying money is not important. I understand and acknowledge that money brings peace of mind, a sense of security and makes us powerful in away. I am only trying to give a perspective about the role of money in life. I am not saying that earning more money is bad or good. So in case you have hate comment, please read the article once again fully and point of the para or line which you want to debate on.