Why do we view losing money as "bad" ????

Alot of people can handle it extremely well.

You just need to ensure your goals are aligned and that money is not your way of "keeping score" in life.

For example James Baker - loves building businesses.
In an extremely unfortunate incident, he lost $600 million dollars on the sale of his software company that he spent 18 years of his life to build!

Is he bitter though? Not at all.

I subscribe to some feeds on Quora, and got notified of his response to the question about it.

Well worth reading what he's written, and/or posting your own question and sending him an A2A:
https://www.quora.com/How-did-James-Baker-lose-several-hundred-million-dollars-in-six-months

 

Wouldn't it be better if your husband had his head stuck up his ass, and donated the millions lost, to children or people in need. Where people can't even find clean water, food or shelter.
I cannot understand how someone is thankful they lost money when it's a tool to help either yourself or others. I'm glad he finally found himself spiritually, but at a cost of 4 million? Seriously.

 

Having grown up in a house with seeing both abundances and droughts of money, and I can tell you things were smoother when there was an abundance. My parents have since taken on more of an abundance mindset (as opposed to the scarcity mindset that they previously had), and they are happier. However it is also worth noting that they are about to sell their 2 properties and move to a simpler lifestyle up the coast with no mortgage. The way I see it, they had to value money at least for a while to create the lifestyle that has now nourished the abundance and life views they now possess.
I know others that do not value money as a freedom creator - and this flows through into their entire life, often leading to a lack of drive and growth.

I don't mean to be harsh and I wasn't there at the time, nor do I know you, - but surely this is just your mental reasoning behind feeling better about such a thing. The old 'I'm glad it happened', means that yes you learned from the lesson. However, if it hadn't, had it paid off or not been as dramatic, would you have really have disliked yourselves? and if so, wouldn't you have had an even greater opportunity to make a change in yourself due to the greater freedom afforded by having a greater net worth (provided it was leading to financial freedom)? A large part of why my parents have been able to make the changes in attitude and life approach they have is because they now have more free time and flexibility due to a more comfortable financial situation.

The original question was why does society think that losing money is bad? Which I believe have been answered by the posts so far. You are also proposing the question of why isn't losing money seen as good, with the argument that lost money can provide life lessons and growth on its own. I fundamentally agree that sometimes a lesson needs to be learned, but I'm sure almost everyone would prefer to have learned that lesson as cheaply as possible. Really its almost like buying life lessons. The more we can get for a bargain, the better! Which in itself infers that perhaps the question should be whether losing money unnecessarily is bad?

 

So what will you do differently now after the financial set back?

What I have observed is many investors that lose money seem to follow a pattern and continue to lose money because they don't change their mindset they tend to blame everyone and do not take responsibility. I have seen this time and time again with a friend and relatives. Its great to see you moving on in a positive way.

money/financial freedom can buy you time/choices and for me that is comforting as it means I can do the things I enjoy today now and get to help the people I love in my life.

Fulfilment/contentment/happiness well that has little to do with money but more to do with how we chose to live our life. For me its having goals/purpose in life, feeling needed/wanted, helping/giving/sharing, I know very simple but these are the things that make me happy.

Marisa

 

no offence, but that just seems like sour grapes .

if your husband was truly thank ful, then he d be looking to lose a million dollars everytime,

that being said I know how he feels,

you say these things to make yourself feel better, and the best of a bad situatiion

 

I think that when your in a job you greatly dislike, money can give you a lot of other options that could lead to a more "happy and content" life. Especially for creative people.

Depending on what trade you love and are skilled at, it can require a lot of capital to get something started up and carry it long enough until it can support you.

Imagine spending 10 years in some terrible job saving all your pennies and then one day quitting and then opening up your business only to go bankrupt 2 years later and having to start all again

 

Personally, it doesn't fuss me. In fact, I expect to suffer many losses as part of my wealth creation strategy with the small portion of capital I allocate to high risk/high reward. I lost $40k last year. Didn't lose a minute of sleep. NEXT.

It seems clear to me why losing money is seen as "bad" though. In most cases:

1. OPTIONS - the decrease.
2. TIME – you probably traded time for that money and will have to sacrifice more of life's most precious non-renewable resource to replenish it.

I made a poll/topic about losses a while ago. Worth reading: Your biggest financial loss.

And also worth reading, this topic on bets:
Would you gamble on this - 2 ?

 

No. I am saying that it is difficult to pay for hospital bills with 'enlightenment'

 

Spot on.

 

Which markets? Please link the commentary as well.

You do not have the power of choice. You cant 'choose' to sell your bad eggs, and you know it.


I suspect the original post is self justification of losing money, and scapegoating money markets instead of the investing vehicle the OP used. All you had was $$$ in the eyes and now you're trying to piece together some wild justification.

pinkboy

 

Maybe you should stop using the word money when really you mean wealth. Money in itself is just the current medium of exchange we use.

As for losing wealth, greater or less wealth directly relates to greater or lesser choice. Simple as that.

And can I point out the irony of your opinion that you don't care about money(wealth) while you're soon to publish a book, run a website, and I assume sell your services as a motivational speaker.

 

Sometimes I think besides making money I gotto be grateful in life. Maybe losing million dollars could led u to avoid facing worst situations. Health family etc are also all equally important. 7-8 years ago my brother passed away from lung cancer. He was a doctor who just 6 months before he was diagnosed purchased a 1.5 million dollar house in cash which was really his only thing he really purchased in his life . Half the time he was working, investing and never travelled, got married nor did anything besides making money. On his deathbed he regreted never travelling to see the world nor having a serious relationship. I see some posters asking why be mediocre rather go as hard as u can ? There has to be balance in life.

 

Wow. Just wow.

I cooked up some lamb cutlets for our friends for dinner last week. They absolutely loved it. I was glad it turned out so well. Lucky I had some coin.

 

Without a doubt, money is an ingredient of happiness and it absolutely gives us more freedom in life. Freedom to go on more holidays with my children, freedom to help my parents in times of need, freedom to provide my kids with a decent education. And so on.

Above all though, health is #1.

 

Up to about 85k p.a in the US apparently. Then, there is a law of diminishing returns thereafter. Also fairly impoverished countries seem to rate highly in happiness polls. Nigeria rates highly from memory.

I think the link between money and happiness is much more tortuous than whether losing money is bad.

edit...

Although with a bit more reading...

"Given a chance to sit back and ponder, people with more money tended to evaluate their lives more positively. And there didn't seem to be any point where an extra dollar stopped making a difference"

Money and happiness: When does an extra dollar stop making us more content.

 

I didn't say money is nothing.... but I didn't say money is everything either.
What if they cleaned up their mindset and got creative and found abundance in some way?

 

What are some ways you can suggest?

 

Thats an interesting bunch of statements to make. Thank you for your input.

So does money, in your view, compensate for a person being an asss (in their ego)?

 

A cleaned creative mindset with abundance in some other way does not pay the bills.

Maybe we should all pay bills like this (worked once):

 

You sound like the mother of serial killers... "he's not a bad kid, just misunderstood". I know I'd rather $1 not transform into zero dollars, that's for sure, especially if I've got nothing to show for it but an experience I don't want.

To flip what you're saying, it's like saying "cancer isn't bad it just is". As someone who has lost loved ones to it I will tell you right now, it both is and is bad at the same time, sure you get experiences from it but ask everyone who has ever had cancer or lost someone to cancer if they thought it was a good thing and you're going to find a pretty resounding response. Losing money isn't on that level but it's the same concept, it something that absolutely doesn't have to happen and the experience is never worth it.

Yes but making mistakes is a bad thing, period. You might come out of it with a good story and experience but the very nature of a mistake is you don't want to do it because it is bad. I'd much rather learn the things I don't want to experience from a book (or other source) than by going through it. For instance I learned that fire was hot and it would burn me from my mother telling me forcefully the first time I tried to touch it, subsequently I learned the lesson without having to suffer the pain of being burned.

Only if you're some kind of masochist who enjoys pain and suffering. Why would you feel good about making your life worse? Sure make the best of the situation and pick up whatever scraps are left at the end of it but actually enjoying it, god no.

That's just gibberish. I can't create money, I have to work for it like everyone else, as such I put value in that, it's the reward for effort, for years of study, for getting out of bed when I don't feel like it, for putting up with traffic, for putting up with bosses I just want to punch sometimes. It's the tangible result of all that, as such it has tremendous value because of what it allows me to do and what I've had to sacrifice to get it.

I'm saying that there is not a thing in life that I'd want to do that I can't do because I have money. Having more money has absolutely zero negative consequences for me in life.

And yes, the vast majority of things I want to do in life require money. Travelling, sports, having children, educating myself, food, drinks, time with friends, marriage, a wife, a house, a nicer house, boats, cars, living longer and better, etc, etc all either require money or are flat out better if you have more money.

Again, I can't think of anything in life that I want to do that having money stops me being able to do so why would I enjoy having to sacrifice all the truly great things that do require money for no good reason?