I’m a big fan of comedians who also make you think. Louis C.K., Ricky Gervais, Trevor Noah from the West and late legends like M.R. Radha & Vivek closer to home. They have a unique take on life and often find significance in the trivial of things.
Jimmy Carr is one such comedian I admire along those lines. His stand-up shows normally transition into crowd work where the audience throw questions at him and he comes back with witty one-liners (or abuses).
In one such show, one guy asks, “How rich are you?”. After giving an intentionally vague and slightly absurd one line response, Jimmy goes on to explain how he would define rich.
“If having money won’t change what you do, then you are already rich”
It sounded so simple but yet so complex to understand the depth of it. While I understood that money is not the only yardstick to measure one’s wealth, what if someone hasn’t even started earning yet?? Can a person who has no money still be rich? It felt like this quote was still a luxury for most people.
A few days later, I saw a podcast hosted by another comedian Hasan Minhaj. He was interviewing financial expert & author, JL Collins. After an hour of talking about financial independence, why leasing a car is bad, investment strategies & bitcoin, it was time to close the episode. Collins ended the episode with a parable from his book.
Two close boyhood friends grow up and go their separate ways. One becomes a humble monk, the other a rich and powerful minister to the king.
Years later they meet up again.
As they catch up, the minister (in his fine robes) takes pity on the thin, shabby monk. Seeking to help, he says: “You know, if you could learn to cater to the king you wouldn’t have to live on rice and beans.”
To which the monk replies:
“If you could learn to live on rice and beans you wouldn’t have to cater to the king!”
Collins describes this as a spectrum we all live within — between self-sufficiency and dependency, between doing what we want and doing what we must. All of us are neither the monk or the minister. We are all somewhere in between though closer to the minister than the monk. And in Collins view there is a lot of life satisfaction and power in being closer to the monk than the minister.
The last sentence from Collins made me understand Jimmy’s definition better. What Jimmy meant was not that you shouldn’t aspire for money. What he meant was to stop Money from owning you.
You do not default to catering to the king for your survival but rather question what is worth surviving for. What is worth surviving for that you would rather eat beans & rice to do that, than cater to the king to enjoy a feast each day.
We often say we want to be rich, but what we really want is the freedom that richness seems to promise: freedom from stress, from bad bosses, from living month-to-month. But those feelings of freedom don’t always arrive at a certain bank balance. Sometimes, they show up when we redesign our life to need less approval, fewer luxuries, or fewer dependencies just to feel okay.
Nobody wants to live in survival mode. But I’ve realised that lifestyle creep is very real. If you keep tying your happiness to the next income milestone, the finish line keeps moving.
So now, I don’t just ask “How can I make more money” but also “Is this something I would do if money is not on the line?”. I don’t think I can ever be a monk to say “No” to the second question and not do certain things that needs to be done for survival. But it is about making sure there are more “Yes” answers than “No" to the question. More things I’d choose to do — even if I didn’t have to.
