Stop Using Finance As Your Coping Mechanism

I have a question for people who write about finance, people who read about finance, and people who otherwise choose to make personal finance a personal priority. Are you using finance as a coping mechanism?

There are specific people I want to ask this question to, both in my financial content circles and in real life. To the guy with thousands of social media followers, whose most frequent topic is how relieved he feels about his investment account. Or one of the dudes in my office with clear family wealth, but who were never taught basic life skills. Or, also, the folks who spend most of their free time in intense fantasies about how they’d live life once they win the lottery/nab their dream salary/make it big on the stock exchange.

Finance acts as a coping mechanism for all three, just in very different ways. Odds are, readers here are either using finance as a coping mechanism in the first or third type of example. Funny how money can be soothing when you have it, and also soothing when you imagine it. No wonder some folks will do anything and everything just to get more money. When finance is your coping mechanism against the world, who can blame you for stealing from others for money? Or scamming them? Or neglecting costly safety procedures in your company, leading to poisoning thousands of people?

Odds are, you’re not a train executive or factory owner indirectly condemning entire towns and counties. I’m assuming you, specifically, are someone who works a full-time job and who doesn’t make as much as you’re worth. You may still be using finance as your coping mechanism; if you are, I’m asking you to stop.

Coping As a Full-Time Worker

This isn’t me bashing you for being proud of the wealth you’ve built or the discipline it takes to do so. I’m proud of you and your efforts to better your life. That’s to be celebrated. I’m also not judging you if you use your wealth as a yardstick for measuring your own happiness. Not when that wealth has the potential to be “fuck you” money and get you out of a bad job so much sooner.

Work sucks. Vacation is not a right. We’re one bad diagnosis away from disaster. Having healthy finances is the one thing that can transform all of that and put some shine on your daily life.

Hell, medieval surfs got more time off than we do in 21st century America. We’ve got less time to ourselves than the people who didn’t have plumbing, TVs, trains, or central heating/AC. How the hell did that not only happen, but continue happening without a major system overhaul? The frustration with the system makes an individual solution that much more enticing. You might not be able to fix things for everyone else, but the numbers in your bank account sure can fix things for you.

Building wealth from nothing but your own labor is impressive and admirable.

The problems come when you are too emotionally invested in how much wealth you have.

If you hate your job, then doing all you can to save every last penny might be a coping mechanism. Are you relentlessly checking your net worth against breaking news about stock performances, the Dow movements, the national economy? That’s coping. When your investments show a negative return in a down year – as, I remind you, is bound to happen – does it make you emotionally distressed or physically sick? That’s another clear sign you’re using your finances to cope.

Coping Via the Fantasy of Money

Weirdly, you don’t even need to have a significant amount of money to use it as a coping mechanism. If you don’t have much, all you need is a financial power fantasy.

We’ve all entertained this fantasy of wealth at some point. Everyone. What you’d do once you become a millionaire, or multi-millionaire. The private jets you’d fly, the Michelin restaurants you’d dine at, the massive homes you’d live in and the glamorous company you’d keep. The end game, the flashiest life. In your mind, it all will be yours!

… once you pay your dues and dedicate several years of your life to work drudgery.

You can become just as emotionally invested here, too. That fantasy has the allure to distract you from paying attention to everything else in your life that makes it worthwhile. Who are you, outside of work and your rich aspirations? What are your favorite books, movies, TV shows, and why? Do you have a favorite story? Do you have things you like to do outside of work?

Are you able to get things done outside of work, like clean your living space?

Do you breathe nonpolluted air and eat non-processed foods?

Do you have friends? People you enjoy spending time with, and do so regularly?

Or do you just have these power fantasies to fuel you long-term?

Again, work sucks and it’s not getting much better. Wages are still stagnant and corporations are uninterested in improving your working conditions without a fight. Fantasy might be the only thing between you and the yawning pit of despair.

If this is true – that your finance fantasy truly is the only thing keeping you functioning – that goes way beyond a red flag. It goes all the way to a neon sign powered by the sun, with RGB strobe lights and laser effects screaming YOU NEED A LIFE CHANGE INTERVENTION IMMEDIATELY. Money is the obvious key to a materially rich life, but it’s not the only necessity to a truly rich life. Work must never be the be-all, end-all. Work, and money, must be a means to an end. It must never be the end.

Money is best wielded as a tool, as an avenue you travel to reach your actual end goal. I’m speaking from experience when I say the fantasy is a poor, substandard substitute to actually living life. I used the finance fantasy as a coping mechanism in my early 20s, which led to me having zero close friends or special adventures in my early 20s. Money and work took absolute precedence, much to my loss. While it certainly did help me cope, it sure didn’t enrich my life at the time either.

Coping When You’re Already Rich

Say you identify with the dudes in my company who already come from generational wealth. You’re already well off, doing better than okay. You don’t need the fantasy because you live it, thanks to growing up in private schools and skiing on the weekends. To be honest, you don’t even really need to seek out a high-paying job. You know you’ll be covered in any emergency; should prices continue to skyrocket, you won’t have to worry one bit.

Even in this case, you might be still using finance as a coping mechanism. For you, the question becomes: is your positive financial state keeping you complacent?

That complacency is like the #1 anathema for romcom wealthy parents, which isn’t the point I’m trying to make. What I mean with that question is this: is your financial state a tool you’re currently using to live your ideal life, or have you stopped pursuing that?

I’ll admit, I’m vague-blogging about a handful of people I see on a weekly basis. Their ages range from their mid-20s to late 50s. Some are just getting started in their careers, others are ultra-talented from decades of honing their craft. But all of them sag at their desks when they think no one is looking. They almost collapse in on themselves – sometimes from the stress of a hard project, and sometimes from the stress of being hard at work. They’ve got really nice apartments and clothes and gadgets, which distract from the bags under their eyes and barely-repressed grimace.

And for what?

My company is a really good place to work at, with unusual perks and a business plan that truly helps people. There’s a lot to like about it, and it’s a workplace many people strive to be a part of. It’s a place where you can easily grow content. But content does not mean happy, and absolutely no one envisions this as their ideal life.

If you’re already rich, you might also be using finance as a coping mechanism to hide the skills you lack. If you’ve always had someone else cook or clean for you, there’s a lot of basic stuff you cannot actually do on your own. A whiz at Excel or Salesforce is one thing; someone capable of folding a towel or cleaning their coffee mug another. How embarrassing must it be to win with wealth or in your career, but couldn’t actually hack it as a coffee barista or building janitor?

In this case, you’re using your financial backing to cope with your own ignorance. You don’t know how to complete these tasks and you’re too ashamed to ask for help learning how; instead, you continue on doing what you are good at and hide this fixable flaw from the world. This is not a sustainable coping mechanism. You don’t want to go your entire life relying on money to do the everyday basics; you’ll be taking some of the most boring tasks out of your life in favor of an existence far below a truly rich life.

How Finance Became a Coping Mechanism

No matter your particular class – lower, middle, or upper – finance can become a coping mechanism. The answer to “why” is capitalism, where money equals power. Because money is the sole barrier to owning basic necessities, money also means safety.

In our world, whatever life throws at you can be either eased or downright solved with enough cash to throw at it. Horrible diseases or sudden disabilities can have much less of an impact, as long as you’ve got the money to pay for mobility aids and therapies and prescriptions. Your violent family member or ex-partner doesn’t have to be a looming scepter, if you have enough money to put barriers between you and them. Seeing your entire state or country descend into anarchy would absolutely suck, but with enough money you can get you and your loved ones out from the chaos ASAP and make a comfortable life for yourselves elsewhere.

Whatever impending doom is troubling you can be soothed by green numbers on your screen. The numbers are a relief. They tell you: you don’t have to be so scared, because I got you.

Finance also became a coping mechanism by virtue of being available. Healthy relationships, which do wonders for coping, are more rare than ever before. Social alienation and crisis is now so widespread that 3 in 5 teenage girls feel sad and hopeless; teenage boys, who do not have the same social bonds as girls do, are similarly doing badly. And they’re the ones with a highly-structured lifestyle surrounded by peers morning, noon, and (with extracurriculars) night.

Extrapolate that to adults 18 and up, whose lives are much less structured and who are facing an uncertain future. They don’t have the social bonds to fall back on.

There’s only what society reinforces as the most important, time and time and time again.

Not that this is a good coping mechanism; coping mechanisms are only good when they don’t give you more problems than you started with. It might be obviously healthier than coping with drugs, alcohol, or identifying with incels or TERFs. You’re not directly poisoning yourself with finance.

But this doesn’t mean much if your finance coping mechanism turns into an obsession.

Make sure you’re not using your finance knowledge or net worth as a coping mechanism for the issues in your life. Whether you go big or go broke, you will never be completely free of consequence.

Experiment with different, and healthy, ways to cope with the trials you’ll inevitably face as a human adult. Money is no substitute for relationships or achieving your goals. Money can certainly give you a nice roof over your head, food, clothes, experiences. It can even set you free from working for the rest of your life, if you so wish. It just won’t replace your need for a deep connection with others, nor will it truly fill the void with the less tangible qualities of life. Which makes it absolutely suck as a way to cope.

Cover image credit: André Bandarra via Unsplash