‘Money’s too tight to mention’ sang Simply Red in the 80s — and so it still goes today in many cases. There’s a subtle yet distinct sense of foreboding that often lurks beneath افضل انواع ماكينات عد النقود — when money really matters. This foreboding shows its ugly head when we are required, (yes even by ourselves), to spend more cash (such as around Christmas time), or when payment is being demanded of us and we have no money to pay. It’s at such times that money really matters, and it’s during these squeezes that money matters can be personally addressed at deeper levels.
Why should money be too tight to mention? Wouldn’t we rather be able to sing along with Abba: ‘Money money money — must be funny in the rich man’s world. Money money money — always sunny in the rich man’s world’?. Money only gets too tight to mention when it becomes an issue — i.e. when money matters too much.
Yes money does matter in life — there is no denying the essentially of money as a commodity for living. But no — money does not matter above all else. And money matters do not take precedence over matters of life and death, health matters, human relationships, and other personal issues.
When money starts to matter over much, then things that really matter begin to matter less, and so our scales slowly and gently get tipped toward a state of imbalance. And the irony is that the more something matters, the more unbalanced we become, and the more things like money tend to elude us.
When money is in balance with all other things, then cash will flow as necessary. Being primarily a form of energy, money needs to be seen first and foremost as a means of exchanging energy with another person, (or group of people).
The concept of money can be illustrated with a key meter for obtaining household electricity. Maybe you’re familiar with the device — it’s an electricity meter box that has a slot for a plastic key that you take to a local shop, pay money (any amount you wish), receive an equivalent potential charge of electricity, take it home and slot it in the key meter. Immediately your available electricity shows an increase on the meter by the exact amount you paid at the shop — (surprise surprise!). The system overcomes the need for emptying coin meters, along with the possibility that they might be broken into, the money stolen, or the device tampered with.
The metaphor however is a good one, and is worth exploring. When you take the empty key to be charged, is it money you bring home in it? Or is it maybe actually charged with electricity? (Heaven help us if it is!) Or is it rather mere potential? I say ‘mere’ — and yet ‘potential’ and ‘actual’ are one and the same thing when time is taken out of the equation. In other words, it is only a matter of time that separates your money, the payment you make shop, you’re charged key, your charged key meter, and your eventual experience of using the electricity to drive various appliances in your home.
If we were to take the whole thing a step further backwards in time, at some point you exchanged services (or goods you owned) for the money you took to the shop. Back a step further again and we find your personal energy going either into the service you provided, or into obtaining the goods you sold in order to get money to take to the shop to charge the key meter.
And somewhere in the middle of all this we have the ‘money’ itself – MONEY as a commodity, (or is it just our illusion of money?). Whether it’s notes or coins in your pocket or purse, a blank piece of paper to write on (a cheque (check)), or even a rectangle of thin plastic that fits in a slot somewhere, (your debit/credit card), or even a means of hitting a few keys on the computer on your bank account website — it’s all called ‘money’.
So let’s ask this: How different is money from the key? Both just provide a means whereby energy is transferred from one place to another. Even the sense of ‘place’ is only an illusion, especially when considering electronic transfer of funds. Where is the money kept? Where is money coming from — where going to? What IS money?
We might ask regarding our electricity: What part does the key play in our getting household electricity and being able to use it? How important is the key? Well the key is definitely something we do not want to lose; we’d want to look after it, especially when we bring it home charged up, as it now represents a certain amount of our hard earned cash. But in the overall scheme of things the little key is no more important than our payment at the shop, than the key meter itself, or than our ability to get to the shop to recharge it, or the electricity company’s ability to supply the energy to us, or any other consideration in the whole equation. The key matters — but is not the whole picture.
In a way, money is like the little key. Yes it matters — but it isn’t the whole picture. Every other aspect of the system matters equally. Without each particular part nothing would work. Money, being like the key, is at the same time both essential, and non-special in essentially. Having the electricity in our home is what the whole exercise is really about. In the days when that was done by means of a coin meter, a charge key was as yet unheard-of. Just like in the days when merchandise was exchanged for other merchandise, money was as yet unheard-of.
Did money matter then? How could it — it didn’t even exist! Does money need to matter today? No more than a key for the electricity meter — as a means of transferring energy from place to place. Viewed as such it will never be allowed to take on any kind of extra significance — an importance that could be likely to make money matters worse for us!
