Why I share my finances
In a culture of secrecy, financial transparency is one of the key principles and practices in the Gift Economy. In our society, we are never supposed to talk about our money. It’s somewhat ironic; we live in a culture that is so wrapped up in money. On the one hand, celebrities and influencers gain millions of followers by showing off their mansions, car collections and $100,000 watches. But on the other hand, we’re never supposed to talk about how much money we actually have.
Someone once told me that they know more about their friend’s sex lives than they do about their finances. And I think that’s generally true for most people.
Talking openly about our finances is incredibly taboo. And I have to admit, it feels really vulnerable.
When I’ve been with organizations that are committed to the Gift Economy, we have openly shared our budget and our finances. But now that I am trying to make it outside of the nonprofit-industrial-complex, continuing to practice this means I have to share my personal finances. And that feels so much more edgy.
But it is important to me. So my intention is to share about my finances on this site roughly every quarter.
My hope in this is two-fold.
First, I feel like being transparent about my finances keeps me accountable to the values that matter to me most. Not just the value of transparency itself, but other values like simplicity, sustainability, community and intentionality. In the world that we live in, it’s all too easy to slip into the capitalist mindset of more, bitter, faster, newer. Without intentional practices, it’s easy for me to start to mindlessly shop for things I don’t need, start to desire things I shouldn’t have and start to feel disconnected from my truest values.
One of my favorite quotes is from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, who said “we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” While I may have values that are in contradiction to those of capitalism, consumerism and individualism, they are the dominant paradigm that I have been raised in. It is how I have been trained. So I need practices like this to keep me honest. It is part of my training - a practice in reorienting myself to a different set of values.
Secondly, financial transparency is a necessary part of the information flow and feedback process in the ecology of the Gift Economy. Without it, it is hard to gauge how one might want to interact with the system.
When I was first learning about the Gift Economy, David Foecke, a board member at East Bay Meditation Center and the first person who taught it to me, told me that telling people to “pay what they can” is not how the Gift works. It doesn’t provide enough information to the giver to support their discernment in what might be a good amount for them to give.
In workshop spaces, when I have simply told people to give what they can, I’ve noticed that sometimes this causes people anxiety because they have no idea what a good amount might be.
David told me that when Buddhist monastics walk around the village asking for alms (traditionally, Buddhist monastics would go begging for their food everyday, and would only eat what was given to them), they would walk around with a large bowl. This way, the villagers could see how much food that monastic already had for the day. This information would help them discern if they want to give more to them, save some for the next monastic that might walk by, or simply keep the food to feed their own family.
Buddhist monk asking for alms
He also taught me that, because we are all conditioned by capitalism to “look for the best bargain,” even those with good intentions tend to give the smallest amount possible that doesn’t make them feel guilty. This does not create sustainability. But when the recipient is transparent about what their need is, the giver is able to use that information to discern how much they may want to give, rather than being driven by their habituated and unconscious patterns.
None of this is a perfect system, since the way I am utilizing the Gift Economy is to act as a bridge between the world we live in now (a capitalist system), and the world I want to live in (a world fully in the Gift). However, I hope that if I can continue to do my best to practice these principles, we will move ever so closer to that world.