Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
Is it ‘unwholesome’ to be materially rich? Especially from all the ang bao we have just received? As this month wraps on Chinese New Year, we reflect on the nature of wealth and how we use/earn our money. We tap on the late Venerable Sheng Yen’s wisdom on Buddhism & Money.
1. What is our relationship with money like?
2. Don’t rely on motivation
What is our relationship with money like?
What’s going on here
The late Venerable Sheng Yen, a famous Taiwanese monk, shares about money and how Buddhists should approach it. Earning money and greed cannot be treated as the same thing.
Why we like it
Venerable Sheng Yen shares his answers to different questions regarding money like ‘If I donate away ill-gotten gains, is it bad Kamma?’ ‘What if I lie as a salesman to get more sales? Is that right?’
We love it for how practical Venerable’s advice is in terms of needing money in this world but also using and obtaining it correctly. While the video is definitely dated in terms of format, we found it as a refreshing break away from the current era’s formatting.
“Greed and earning money should be treated as two separate thing. Greed means to consider one’s own benefits and gratification. “
Wise Steps
Evaluate how you feel about money. Does it always make you feel fearful or greedy that it is not enough or are you not thinking about it at all? Managing our relationship with money ensures that we don’t fall into extremes of overspending or underspending (miser mindset).
Watch it here (subtitles in English!) or below
Check out our film review of his biopic here
Don’t rely on motivation
What’s going on here
Liz and Mollie, Instagram Artists, share a really impactful image on consistency & motivation. Motivation is lumpy in helping you reach the goal. It tends to follow the action. Conversely, consistency is the system you can rely on to reach your final outcome. Which will you choose?
Why we like it
We often think that we ‘need’ that motivation, however, motivation is transient. We want to lose weight today but end up eating Bak Kwa in the next moment. Consistency requires us to lean in on small but increment changes to get us to the final goal
” I rarely want to work out, so I’ll tell myself, “Just do it for 5 minutes and then you can quit.” Once I’ve gotten going, I feel good, and it’s easy to keep going.”
Wise Steps
Trying to get a new habit in? Make it atomic. Make it easy to do & do it consistently until you are ready for next step in shaping the habit.
Enjoy the post!
We also wrote about giving up on resolutions here!
P.S. We found making our habits more consistent after reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits.
