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Money trumps self-actualization and anyone who tells you otherwise obviously has no trouble paying their bills or can no longer remember a time when they did. It’s hard to save the world while living under a bridge or being consumed with anxiety about whether the phone will ever ring for another job interview. And I see damn few guru/thought leader types in the personal development field who are willing to acknowledge that you can’t pay this month’s rent with the prosperity doctrine.

Prioritizing your need for a stable income and opting for a  practical (vs.  blissed-out/awesometastic/epic) career choice because you know that it won’t leave you living paycheck-to-paycheck until your government pension kicks in doesn’t make you an unevolved, money-grubbing wage slave, it makes you pragmatic and self-interested. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that. No shame in seeing the game for what it is. No one else has to walk in your shoes or pay off your line of credit. You do what you have to do to get by and then you do what you want to do with the leftover energy and money. But it’s hard to think about that until there actually is leftover energy and money.

Don’t fall into the myopically classist* rabbit hole of berating yourself for “safe” and/or necessary choices that seem to run counter to personal growth truths. Money (and not just the purportedly easy kind that comes from shilling your essence to online suckers) matters and it matters most when you don’t have enough to go around.

*Don’t you doubt for a damn second that the language and philosophy of self improvement and personal growth absolutely reeks with class privilege.

This piece was originally published on GenerationMeh.com