Very often, when we embark on the journey of financial planning, we can get caught up in the process and forget the purpose. A too-tight focus on money and its care has the potential to leach away the joy that money can bring. And equally on the other side, a too-tight focus on instant gratification has the potential to reduce us to our baser instincts. Diwali is the time when we have the opportunity to reconnect with the deeper meaning of money in our lives, discover our relationship with money and then if we don’t like what we find, to change it to what the aspiration is.
For us to discover our relationship with money, we should be able to wade through all the insecurities, emotions and experiences that having money or not having it have brought into our lives till now. This is not easy to do since the money energy is deeply entwined with every aspect of our lives such that it is difficult to unravel the real reason for doing what we do. It helps to see this through three lenses—how we earn, spend and look after money.