by Sarah Byrd
Do you just have to have that new iPhone? Do happily you buy the newest computer game for your nephew but wear socks with holes in them? Do you feel driven to work just one more hour when you’d rather be playing with your children? Why do we behave as we do?
I recently read an interesting book titled The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge by Ted Klontz, Rick Kahler and Brad Klontz. The title seemed like an oxymoron to me. The authors use the characters and the story as a backdrop to discuss our relationship with money. The stated goal of the book is “to help you identify those hidden beliefs that are sabotaging your fulfillment in life, bring them into full awareness and deal with them so that they lose their power.”
The starting point is our beliefs. Whether we recognize them or not, we all have hidden beliefs about money that drive our behavior. The authors call these “money scripts.” They suggest that most of them are learned in childhood and internalized. “Since children can’t fully grasp adult reality, they translate what they see and hear into unconscious rules about life.”
The problem is that “these perspectives don’t necessarily reflect reality from an adult perspective. Instead, they may represent only a distorted truth as seen through the eyes of a child.” As we mature we often behave as if the partial truth is an absolute truth. It is now a money script. It can be difficult to recognize the script, because it’s how we’ve always thought about that aspect of money; it just makes sense to us.
Seeing both Scrooge’s and Cratchit’s money scripts might help us recognize our own.
A few of Scrooge’s money scripts are:
- Don’t spend money on yourself or others.
- The more money you have, the happier you will be.
- Giving to the poor encourages laziness.
- Money will give you meaning in life.
When you remember his meager existence in a cold, dark house, his refusal to give to the poor, suggesting workhouses were the answer, and his miserliness with Bob Cratchit, you can see some of the negative effects of his scripts.
But he’s not the only character with detrimental scripts. Consider some of Bob Cratchit’s:
- There will never be enough money.
- You can never be happy if you are rich.
- If you are good, the universe will supply your needs.
His scripts keep him stuck in the role of victim, working for a tyrant. He accepts his miserable existence as his destiny.
Once you accept that you have money scripts, you need to be willing to challenge them. Simply stated, we need to be willing to look at ourselves objectively. This usually involves help from others. Scrooge had the ghosts. Seeing his past and present helped him see how he’d been affected by events and how they were continuing to impact his life. If you’re brave enough, sit down with a spouse, friend or sibling and ask some hard questions. Among others, the authors suggest some of the following:
- As best you can, recall the memorable experiences you have had with money, both good and painful. Go as far back in your memory as you can.
- Go back and put a feeling word next to each of the items. Can be as simple as angry, sad, afraid.
- Now look over everything you have written and ask yourself: “Looking at everything that has happened, if I had to write one or two sentences to summarize my experiences with money, what would they be?” Another to think of it is, “The moral of my story is…”
For some of you we’ve just reached the point of discomfort.
But consider this: Scrooge’s final epiphany came when he was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future. It was seeing how these lifelong scripts would play out to the end that finally shook him up enough to make him want to change. We don’t have to look death in the face to know there are things we can hope to see changed. It starts with understanding, which will only come by looking.
Doing it through the means of such an accessible story works well and the authors never have to stretch to make their points. Scrooge was exposed early on to possess little wisdom, and even less aptitude, for relationships. I, however, had always overlooked what financial wisdom he may have had. He amassed a fortune but couldn’t enjoy it. Until he changed.
Rarely do we think change is easy, but we all know when it’s the right change it’s worth the effort. So if you’re willing, ask yourself, “What are my money scripts? Could they be sabotaging me? What would my life be like if I changed them?” We would be happy to enter into this discussion with you.
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