The Price of Saving...

Dear Readers,

I always thought that saving money would bring me peace, and a sense of security in a world that can be as unforgiving as unpredictable. I followed the rules: I worked hard, cut back on indulgences, and set aside what I could for a future that, I hoped, would be brighter. But what I never anticipated was the price that came with it the silent, creeping ruin that money, even in savings, could bring.

You see, money didn’t just buy comfort; it bought expectations. It became a measure of my worth in the eyes of others, a target for those who thought they deserved a piece of what I’d worked for. I found myself in a maze, trapped by others’ judgments and demands, each turn taking me further from the life I’d envisioned. The more I saved, the more I lost myself in a cycle of betrayal, disappointment, and disillusionment.

What good is saving when the cost is your peace of mind? When those closest to you see only your savings and not the person behind them? The very thing that was meant to protect me left me vulnerable, surrounded by people who cared more for what I had than who I was.

Now, I sit with a deeper understanding of what saving truly costs me. It wasn’t the money that ruined me, but the world’s obsession with it and how, in trying to protect myself from that world, I lost sight of the one thing money could never buy: my peace, my purpose, my soul.

At some point, I realized that money couldn’t buy me the one thing I craved most connection. No matter how much I saved or how much I had, it couldn’t heal the empty spaces that had formed around me, the distance that had grown between me and the world. It’s ironic, really. We save to protect ourselves, to feel secure, yet in doing so, I watched as the walls I built grew higher, keeping out everything that truly mattered.

I had convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, that saving meant securing a better future. But I didn’t see that, in the process, I had lost touch with the present. The people around me the ones I thought I was protecting became strangers. And, in the end, all the money in the world couldn’t fill the hollow spaces left behind.

It’s a strange kind of ruin when you realize that the very thing you believed would save you has only left you more lost. It’s not about the money anymore; it’s about the weight of the expectations it carried with it. The judgment, the demands, the belief that it could fix what was broken when, in truth, it only made the cracks deeper.

Now, I find myself at a crossroads, wondering where to go from here. The money may be there or not there. But the pieces of myself that I lost along the way feel far out of reach. What’s left when the thing you worked so hard to preserve no longer holds meaning? Maybe it’s time to find new value, something beyond what can be measured in numbers and accounts.

Maybe it’s time to focus on rebuilding not my savings, but myself.

I guess it’s too late…

Jacob M