How Earning Money Changed the Way I Value Things

Two years ago, I dreamed of owning every gadget in the Apple ecosystem. What about you? You should have had such dreams. Is it the latest iPhone, a dream car, or perhaps a house of your own? However, all feelings change after the purchase ends.

I have everything in the Apple Ecosystem: a personal monitor, wonderful headphones, and many of those games I originally used to pirate. Yet, after getting all these, I realise I am not as happy as expected. My purchase list is longer than even before I started earning.

What changed everything.

My relationship with tech mirrors my relationship with food. I always thought of “eating out” as a reward. Growing up, ‘eating out’ felt like a reward for achievements. I didn’t see this as a problem until I started earning and could afford it anytime. I realised that now I could order anything at any time of the day. Whether junk food or gourmet cuisine, I now have the choice to eat it. And that’s what I did for the last 1.5 years.

Fast-forwarding to the present, I now eat oats, sandwiches, and sometimes a fruit bowl as my meals or a protein bar as a snack. Strangely, these simple things are more fulfilling than those variety dishes ever did. I realised that these cuisines had no lasting benefit. The taste no longer mattered in what I ate. Of course, I enjoy pasta or ramen occasionally, but having them in my daily meals made no sense anymore.

Once I realised this, it started seeping into other aspects of my life — especially my tech dreams. I am as much a tech nerd as I was two years ago. But now, I rarely buy an interesting gadget instead of everything I find. There’s a fundamental shift in the way I value things now.

Money changes the way we value things.

Once I started earning money, my relationship with it transformed. Every penny I earn is now linked to the work I am currently doing. So, the weight of it completely changed. Earlier, I wanted the shiny new iPhone because I wanted to define my worth, and I had no means of doing that. The same reason applies to my past desires for shiny new cars.

I always thought I lacked confidence, and I assumed these gadgets would make me look cool, as if owning them could project the confidence I lacked. Now, I realise that everyone thinks a BMW is cool, but very few think that the driver of a BMW is cool. This was also shared in the famous book “Psychology of Money” as the man-in-the-car paradox. Once I bought all the Apple gadgets, tried every food I originally wanted to, and controlled an entire house, I realised that my self-worth was never linked to these things. It was never meant to be linked to these things.

This realisation reshaped my priorities. And as I looked into other day-to-day aspects, I kept finding more and more changes. I look forward to sharing more of these changes in my upcoming articles. I hope to meet you soon through them!

Thanks for staying till the end. ✌️