Craving Money, Craving Peace
I need money.
I want money.
I feel greedy, selfish, gross.
But I don’t want or need money because I crave power, status, or control over anyone or anything.
I just want to be happy.
Peaceful.
Comfortable.
Creative.
Cozy.
And happy.
Did I mention happy?
But more than happy, I want to be peaceful.
Did I mention peaceful?
Happiness, peace, beauty, meaning, joy, connection—these are the things I crave.
The Life I Long For
I want hot morning lattes, warm afternoon tea, evening glasses of rosé—my wine glass twinkling in the light of the sunroom on a summer evening.
I want long walks down beautiful streets. I want to wander aimlessly through museums. I want to read and write and create without the burden of worrying about what I’ll eat, where I’ll live, or whether I can pay my bills this month. Especially my medical bills—because of all my bills, those are the most enormous, which feels very American of me.
I want a century home with three floors and three dormer windows on the top floor.
The Shame of Wanting
I was raised to believe that wanting things was somehow wrong.
That to want was to lack character. That the only thing you should want is Jesus. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else was important. And if anything else felt important, it meant you were wrong.
Who Was Jesus?
But who was this Jesus? I pictured a white man with a brown beard—someone who looked like my own father, like the illustrations on the walls of Sunday school classrooms, or the Bible story cartoons that played on a VCR hooked up to a television shaped like a bulky Amazon box.
Jesus was God. But also man. But also the Son of God. God and his son were somehow the same. And his son was somehow human. But we were monotheistic; not polytheistic like the pagans! Our God was three. But three in one. Jesus, God, and something else called the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, depending on which Bible translation you were reading that day.
So Jesus was God, man, and ghost. And God was one. And if that didn’t make sense to you, that was just because your broken, feeble human mind was incapable of comprehending God's greatness.
The Roots of My Beliefs
All of my pondering, no matter the topic, goes back to religion. Because before my mother ever said, “I love you,” she probably said, “Jesus loves you.” If one thing was instilled in me from the moment I took my first breath, it was Jesus above all—at all costs.
Breaking Out of the Box
How can you possibly enjoy life, become the person you want to be, form meaningful relationships, or create meaningful things if you’re taught throughout your formative years that the only thing with any value is the narrow belief system of your family? It’s like being trapped in a box. My whole life, I felt claustrophobic—until finally, as I slowly began to leave religion, my world started to open, and I started to feel like I could finally breathe.
Choosing My Own Path
I want to be happy. I want to be free. I want to believe in what resonates with me and leave behind whatever doesn’t. I want to want things. I want to create a life I love for myself and my family. A beautiful life of coffee, tea, wine, bicycles museums, century old homes, and freedom: freedom to think, freedom to be, freedom to love, freedom live just as we are. Because who we are is enough.