Is money really the root of all evil?
by Gandhi
Hello, my fellow thinkers! I want to start this blog by thanking everyone for their beautiful and incredibly personal responses last week. I had the opportunity to read many of the entries, and I was so moved by all of your willingness to share and be honest about what is going on for you. I have to admit that it was really scary being that upfront about my insecurities, and it was so amazing to feel the support from all you readers and then to see the participation that came from that… Truly beautiful.
So, it has been an insane week finishing up on the show. I always seem to work the last day of the season. Last year ended with a kiss with Tom Welling and some Egg McMuffins at 7:30 A.M. This year, I got off an hour earlier, but it was much colder and there was no kissing involved. We seem to be going downhill here. I must complain to the manager. 
Ok… So this week, I have picked yet another Gandhi quote. I mean, the man was brilliant! And I have been really thinking about money and how misrepresented it is in today’s society. I think it is so funny that we choose to blame our problems on an inanimate object instead of looking at it and recognizing that it isn’t the money that creates the issue; it is what we as human beings choose to do with this money that creates the struggles, but it is so much easier to relinquish responsibility. I know this to be true because I do it, consistently. I, often times, feel very guilty about the money that I make because I love what I do so much, I have always been very mixed up in my belief that it isn’t really hard work if it is fun; and since I have always loved what I do, I don’t equate it with hard work, therefore denying that I have put any effort into earning my success, and in turn, feel guilty about it. Oy! Yet another thing to work on. Haha! It seems to be a never-ending struggle. I guess that is the point in life– to find struggles, overcome them, and then help your fellow humans do the same. What a wonderful cycle.
I also wanted to bring up finances and money because last year, a great friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful new type of banking called “microfinancing.” For those of you who don’t know much about it, the man that developed it (Muhammad Yunus) won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. It is this really awesome program that he set up in Bangladesh that offers small loans (sometimes as low as 50 bucks) to entrepreneurs in developing nations. This gives them the opportunity to help themselves out of their situation and eventually build enough of a business to employ others in their community. It is such a beautiful way to encourage people out of poverty because it supplies an opportunity where there wouldn’t normally be one, and yet it isn’t a handout. The people can feel like they are doing it on their own, therefore, there is no loss of pride or self-esteem.
It’s amazing for me, how much better I feel about receiving money when I feel as though I have actually earned it. It’s like I was saying before, until I actually acknowledged the effort that I put into my career, I felt very bad about taking the money for it. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be in a developing country that is living off of handouts. I can project that I would have very low self-esteem and confidence as an effect of the lack of effort that I put in to earning that money that someone has given me for simply existing in this poor country. But what microfinance does is provide people with the opportunity to earn the money, thereby building a greater sense of pride and independence, which ultimately results in raised self-esteem. Beautiful.
I am so excited about this program and these ideas because it feels like a sustainable and constructive way to address some of the world’s poverty issues. I want to encourage all of you to check out two websites that are dedicated to this type of banking and do a little more reading about it on your own.
The sites are www.kiva.org and www.grameenfoundation.org.
I hope you have as much fun reading about it and are as inspired by their ideas and missions as I am!
Look forward to your feedback! Yay!
Ciao, friends.
Allison
