Up to You by Andy Stanley

Author:Andy Stanley [Stanley, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56331-6
Publisher: Crown Religion/Business/Forum
Published: 2012-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

ASKING THE WRONG QUESTIONS

Of all the areas of life that require wisdom, this one should be the easiest to get a handle on. Making decisions about time, relationships, and even morality requires us to consider such intangibles as passion, fear, and God’s calling. But money is simple: A certain amount comes in and you tell it what to do. That’s pretty much it.

The fact is, in this country, most money problems stem from poor financial management, not low income. How do we know this? Because the two biggest crises Americans face today are obesity and consumer debt. We eat too much and we spend too much. Neither of these problems is caused by earning too little.

But as usual, our propensity is to look for someone else to blame. So overweight people blame McDonald’s, while financially overextended people blame the economy or the president or their employers.

So what’s happening? Why is it so easy for us to abandon common sense when it comes to our money? Why do we spend so foolishly? Why do we intentionally take on the unnecessary pressure that comes with credit card debt and then complain about it?

Is it greed? Maybe. Is it stupidity? Probably not. Are we all just consumed with keeping up with the people around us? I’m sure that’s part of it. But I think there’s something else that keeps us on the financial treadmill. We have allowed culture to influence the way we manage money by teaching us to ask all the wrong questions.

Can I afford it?

What will the monthly payment be?

How much can I borrow?

Is it on sale?

The assumption is that if I can make it work financially, I should make it work. If I can afford it, I should afford it. If I can borrow it, I should borrow it.

The reason we so easily get upside-down financially is because everybody who has anything to sell is working overtime to move us in that direction. The only person looking out for your best interest financially is—you guessed it—you! And that means you must ask yourself a different set of questions.

The conventional questions are fine for conventional people, but you don’t want to be a conventional person, do you? If you look conventional up in the thesaurus you will find these synonyms: standard, normal, typical.

Think about it. Do you want to be a standard person? How about normal? Typical? Conventional is what everybody else is doing. And you remember what your mom has always said about that: “If everybody jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?”

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