The Money Myth
This post is part of a series of reflections on re-imagining the role of partnership brokers where we (Sarah Patterson and Rita Dieleman) explore how we can shift the way we connect, relate, and anchor our ways of being away from what we think we should do (a state of mind), toward what our hearts beat for (a state of heart). You can find the other reflections in this series via our introduction article.
Photo by Christofer Dalla Lana on Unsplash
Once upon a time, there was a little coin. He was bright and shiny. And he had a mission. He would make life so much better for everyone!
Until Coin was born, people used to exchange what they had; cattle, baskets, milk, produce form their lands. But it was so inconvenient. They wanted something small and easy that could be used anywhere to exchange what they had for what they needed. And then, there was Coin! He would bring freedom and happiness to the world. People would be free to go where they wanted, have what they desired and connect with each other on new levels; a great life!
People were so happy with little Coin. They would chew on him to see if he was real. When he came to live with them, they would treasure him. They would carry him in little leather bags and Coin went from hand to hand for years and years.
Little Coin saw the world changing; beautiful homes were built, people started to talk about him more and more. He felt proud; he made people happy!
One day though, little Coin was put in a basket made of copper, together with many brothers and sisters. It was dark for a long, long time. How much time passed? A year, ten, a thousand? He had no idea. And then, all of a sudden, a little boy dug him up. The boy shouted in excitement: “Look, look, I found a treasure!!”
The boy carried little Coin to his house; how much the world had changed again! He saw all kinds of vehicles he had never seen before, people walking around with little devices to their ear while talking. There was so much noise, lights, things! But how happy, he thought, were people still to see him!
“Look mummy, how bright and shiny,” the little boy said to his mother. “This is the start of my fortune, I want to be rich and famous when I grow up!” The little boy wanted to keep Coin; he didn’t exchange him for anything like they used to do before. He glued Coin on a big blank canvas with glass in front of him and hung him on his bedroom wall. “I’m gonna be rich,” he said to Coin before he went to sleep. And Coin was happy for him because the boy was happy.
Years passed, and Coin was still on the wall. It was not the boy’s bedroom wall anymore; the boy had grown up to be a young man and now had a ‘study’. Coin would see him at his back working on a machine with arrows in red and green with many numbers. He didn’t understand what it was, but it was clearly very important to the young man. He would spend hours on end looking at these arrows; going wild when they would turn green, and frustrated when they would turn red.
Sometimes Coin would see a little boy and a little girl coming: “Daddy, look what I made at school, listen to what I did today!” The man’s face would light up as he turned around and cuddled his children, listening to their stories. And then he would say; “Okay kids, please go ahead and play, daddy has to make money!”
As time passed, Coin changed walls from time to time as the study grew bigger and bigger. He noticed how the man spent more and more time behind his machine. His children didn’t come in as often and when they did, he wouldn’t turn around as happy as he used to. He became angry, telling them to go because he was busy. Coin didn’t understand; wasn’t the whole purpose of him being there not that people would be free and happy? But there he was, confined to his tiny glass prison, and so was the man in his own. Where was the happiness?
The man grew old, his back folded behind his machine. He hardly turned around anymore since his children had left the home and he had no reason to leave his room. He still shouted with the turning of the coloured arrows. Until one day, he gave a deep sigh, bent forward on his desk next to his machine and didn’t move any more.
Coin felt sad and a bit confused; he didn’t understand why he ended up there on the wall, and what had happened. But he felt a bit relieved too. “Finally”, Coin thought; “Finally, man is now free after all”.