by EK Wills
Do you lavish each other with praise and gifts?
Or are you restrained, aiming to teach about saving for the future?
And how does this affect the next generation? Do they grow up with the same values as the parents: a learned habit that is handed on to the next generation? Does that affect your amount of monetary success?
Our family had a modern split so step-parents were involved in complicating the level of family influence. The result was polar opposite approaches within the parental ranks.
Not only does this mean that we have different views attributable to our individual experiences but we have a wider range of role models than the usual nuclear family.
My mother, for example, is excellent at saving money and budgeting. She can make a dollar stretch further than anyone I know. My father, on the other hand, approached it from the perspective of making money to avoid having to be constrained. He then found a partner to spend it well before settling down with someone very practical for when the boom turned to bust. This makes for an interesting Christmas get together if opportunity gathers everyone in the same room.
As children, we got to see these varied approaches and it has been interesting to see who chose to take what approach.
Amoungst the siblings, we have one who opted out of the mainstream who has always spent as she saw fit regardless of supply. Then there is a business high flyer who is generous with charities. I seem to have tried different approaches but none very consistently.
This means the next generation is an odd mix of styles, ranging from hippy to corporate and everything in between. But where did that come from? Different maternal influences could explain some differences but the outcome is not consistent with this since my full sister has completely different ideologies to me. Plus there is the influence of personal experience along the way, as well as personality, which affects how different people process the same information.
If you are a proponent of The Secret whose approach includes the concept of generosity, you will know it suggests ‘the more you give, the more you get’. It promotes the idea of a flow of energy.
Popular belief in society, however, is a proponent of saving and delayed gratification as a recipe for success: ‘work hard, live frugally and save for the future’.
The idea of intersubjectivity discusses differing beliefs among people who subscribe to different thought communities. A thought community can include church groups, professions, generations and cultures to name a few.
Intersubjectivity says that individual beliefs are often the result of these, not just personal experience or universal human beliefs.
But what translates into success as an adult? Even from our small sample it appears that the multiple approaches we were exposed to resulted in multiple outcomes. There are so many confounding factors that it is impossible to draw any fast conclusions. For example, what is the current economic climate? The doomsayers are predicting the next big depression so how would that influence The Secret approach?
Maybe all that is involved is the conviction to act according to your beliefs in order to gain monetary success? This means that whatever approach you take, it will be your truth and so lead you down a particular path. Only time will then tell whether this was a basis for fact for you and has the outcome you desire.
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