First, let me tell you something about my relationship with chocolate.

Liquid salted caramels. Sharp raspberry creams. Dark and bitter with grains of real coffee. Fresh green pistachio praline. Creamy blocks of honey milk.

I like expensive chocolate. The quality stuff. I spend as much money on chocolate as wine lovers would spend on good wine.

I spend this money because I love eating good quality chocolate.

The money I spend is more than repaid by the scrumptious enjoyment I receive.

Sometimes I eat too much chocolate and my pleasure-quota reduces rapidly. Sometimes I go off a particular flavour. Sometimes my spending priorities (my desires) are elsewhere. Sometimes a recipe is changed and my favourite liquid caramel isn’t quite so amazingly delicious any more.

It can be hard to work out whether it’s the chocolate that’s at fault, or my approach to the chocolate. It doesn’t really matter.

I let my enjoyment levels guide me, and I’m curious about what might be happening and whether there are lessons to be learnt.

Then I move on. To a new chocolate, or to a brimming bowl of tart juicy blueberries.

These thoughts originate in part from an ebook about loving money. It was recommended by a friend who, after reading the book, started making money again after a long drought. It’s encouraging me to play around with the idea of financial transactions as an opportunity to increase the fruitful exchanges happening in the world.

I want this approach to money. I want to find the people who will gain much much more from the experiences we offer than the ‘cost’ to them.

Expensive chocolate. Therapy. My bright red Fiat 500. A day on retreat. A shiny four-slice toaster.

When I buy the right things, regardless of how ‘expensive’ they are, what I receive is worth much more than the money I spend.

How would your relationship with money change if you could see it as working to open up channels for fruitful exchanges? What would you joyously buy for yourself? What would you offer others as an “opportunity to give you money”? What wonderfulness would they receive in return?

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Coin photo by Swamibu via Creative Commons with gratitude.

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If you liked this you might also enjoy Follow Your Intuition by Laura Wells, By Donation by Claude Genest  or Put That Down! We Can’t Afford It.

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Editor: Andrea B.