Cash - The Calm Killer?

With a world economy that is the antithesis of calm, I'm thinking of cash on the macro and the micro levels. Recently I have been waking in the wee small hours with a spreadsheet in my head.

Rather than counting sheep I'm crunching numbers. 

Silly thing is, no amount of thinking is making any difference. I just don't seem to do my best thinking at 4am. Like Sarah Jessica Parker's character in I Don't Know How She Does It (great concept, dreadful film) I'm alert and alarmed, making lists for all the different areas of my life. This is a reflection of stress and of having waaay too much to do. 

It is also attachment to things that are impermanent. And what is less permanent than money?  My experience is: money comes in, money goes out...

Gradually, with mindfulness practice and breathing exercises these alarming anti-sleep experiences are abating. But I am interested in my relationship to money and our whole society's dependence on the stuff. We know that money doesn't equal happiness.  But still we rush after it. Without doubt we know that debt is a calm killer - look how real estate and shares fluctuate due to the mass panic waves of the punters. These phenomena are great illustrations of a new health issue I've christened CDD Calm-Deficit Disorder and it's an epidemic.

In the spirit of the Choosing Calm project, I am looking to any source or text that seems to provide good ideas on how to live well in this world, at this time. On this cash vs. calm topic I have turned to Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks for his wisdom on wealth. 

The best commentary on all this was given by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. He is addressing the next generation, the children of those who had been liberated from slavery. He tells them, surprisingly, that the real trial is not poverty but affluence. Affluence dulls the senses. It makes you forget where you came from. You start taking prosperity for granted, not realising how vulnerable it is. Bad things begin to happen. Inequalities grow. The social bond becomes weak. The nation forgets who it is and why.

 

Moses therefore restates a series of commands designed to teach the Israelites how to control their impulses and safeguard the future. Rest every seventh day. Cancel debts every seventh year. Place spiritual, not material, values at the heart of society. Fight poverty. Pursue justice. Treat employees decently. Care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Ensure that everyone has dignity. Deuteronomy is not about short term growth but about long term sustainability.

Sane and simple. Let's take the Moses Model as our new international monetary model!