3 Reasons Why Money Won’t Make You a Better Man

What are you doing to be a better man? I want you to read to the end of this post and then answer it in the comments, write it down, or simply have your thoughts in your mind.

If your answer involves money, then I understand. It’s clear that the pursuit of money will forever be in the minds and hearts of men worldwide until the end of time.

It doesn’t matter what happens in our lifetimes; people will forever chase money for their own specific reasons. Whether it’s about status, attracting women, power, self-worth, looking after your family, or any of the other reasons for trying to up your financial means.

I was also caught up in such a cycle. I looked at where I was in life and who I was and thought that if I had more money, I would feel better. I would feel more complete and worthy of attention, love, and affection. I would be more.

The reality is that no matter how much money I made, I always felt like the same person. I never felt overly different.

In one of my posts talking about the 8 life lessons I’ve learned in manhood, I mentioned how your bank account doesn’t define you and I want people to really take in how important this point is.

In this post is three reasons why money won’t make you a better man.

Money Doesn’t Give You The Intangibles

You can chase money all your life thinking that doing so will improve who you are. You’ll be able to buy the things you want and look after yourself and others, but when you look deeper at who you are, who are you?

As a man, defining yourself by your bank account can only take you so far. There are qualities that you need to have as a man that supersede what’s in your bank account:

Being trustworthy
Being honest
Being reliable
Being able to support and protect your family and loved ones
Being caring
Being emotionally stable
Being able to make good decisions
Being calm under pressure
Being resilient

These are only a few qualities that fall under the umbrella of manhood and many of these qualities have nothing to do with money. You can have nothing in your account but still, be resilient. Still be reliable, honest, and able to support and protect your family.

You can have all the money in the world and have none of these things.

Money Can’t Replace Personal Growth

The journey of personal growth is a long one. It’s a hard one. It involves honestly looking at your life and who you are to understand where your issues lie and where you can move forward.

You don’t need money to do this. In fact, it’s hardest to slow yourself down to where you can honestly look at your life when you are in full force in the pursuit of money.

When you take time out to pause for a moment and look inwards, you can see that money won’t be the solution to all of your issues. It won’t help you to grow in the key areas you need to develop to be the man you have been called to be.

Money can’t help you emotionally. When you find yourself facing the same issues over and over in different ways or getting triggered at specific moments of your life, your money won’t be able to save you.

The work doesn’t end with you improving your finances. It doesn’t end at all. Growth comes from working on yourself as a person, independent of your external circumstances. It involves a constant striving to unlearn what hasn’t served you before so you can start embodying the good qualities that true masculinity is all about.

It’s hard to even listen to yourself when the quest for money is louder.

Neglecting your personal growth can even have negative effects on your financial situation. The more you invest in your personal growth, the better you’ll be able to tap into your strength which will translate into improvements in all areas — your job, your businesses, and your relationships.

Being more in tune with yourself allows you to create more abundance in your life.

Contentment Comes From Within, Not Externally

You can chase money all your life but the reality is, you can never truly be happy until you fix yourself internally.

We’ve seen celebrities and rich people crash due to depression. The world is at their fingertips, yet still appears unfulfilled.

Why is that? Because they are not happy regardless of their financial situations.

True contentment comes from within. Gratitude comes from within. They are states which have nothing to do with money. Or what car you drive. What job do you have, or how many women you sleep with.

Money can’t fill the void in your heart and soul because money is not real.

What’s real is love. Laughter. Spirit.

Money can’t suddenly make you positive if you weren’t a positive person beforehand. It can’t change your mindset in the way you think it will. It can only enhance the qualities that are in you.

That means money will only enhance that if you have a mean or dark spirit. If you don’t care for yourself or others, money will only magnify this aspect of yourself. It can’t replace what wasn’t there already.

That’s why true contentment comes from within. The external circumstances are simply a distraction from the real goal — mastering yourself and living your life with gratitude and you don’t need money to do that.

So to end this post I ask you again — what are you currently doing to be a better man?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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