Financial Stability as a Form of Self-Love (part 1)

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If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. 

If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. 

~Edmund Burke

I am not just a broke college kid. I may not come from the most financially opulent environment, but I learned at a young age that in order to get anything I want in life I’ll have to work for it. I may not be paid as much as I’d like for the work I do, but when you need the money, you need the money. There are plenty of people on this campus who juggle multiple jobs - on top of extracurriculars and classes - either because they want some extra cash, or because they need it. I’ve spent three years learning how my mental health changes depending on my financial state, and vise-versa, and I want to help those who experience similar situations and have felt similar effects. Whether you’re new to having access to a bank account or you’ve been racking up credit card debt since high school, finances affect us all. On the individual level, how you manage and cope with the challenges that come your way now can affect your mental health and financial situation for years to come. In this series, we will be exploring the psychological effects personal finances have on us through my personal journey to self-love and financial stability.

Let’s begin with how the dictionary defines self-love:

Self-love = an appreciation of one's own worth or virtue, proper regard for 

and attention to one's own happiness or well-being, 

and even inflated love of or pride in oneself. 

Dictionaries are great starting points, but as you learn the value you have as an individual it’s important to create your own definition, based on your needs and experiences. In my case, I’ve worked hard to work through my extreme perfectionism and learn to accept what I can and cannot change. I spent most of my life believing that my value lied in my achievements, and that my life would be made of only successes and failures (black & white thinking). At times, I thought that if I didn’t meet my unrealistically high expectations I would be deemed worthless by my loved ones, and would die alone (catastrophic thinking). From these thoughts and experiences I learned that accepting who you are in the present, who you were in the past, and understanding that you have power over who you are in the future is my definition of self-love. As you would devote yourself to a friend or a pet, you can do to yourself. As much time and energy you spend on outside factors - clubs, sports, volunteering, work - you can spend on yourself. Self-love is the goal, the ideal. I also believe that by taking the initiative and seeing the significance of the role your finances play in your daily life (and future) is a path to this ideal. 

There is no dictionary definition for financial stability/instability, but by picking through the words you get: 

Finance = money or other liquid resource of a government, 

business, group, or individual

Stable = firmly established; not changing or fluctuating

From these definitions you can define financial stability as non-fluctuating money. My personal definition is based on experiences of negative balances (below zero), overdrawn accounts, and earning back every penny I spent my freshman year. Being financially stable means that I can make the necessary payments (broken down on my personal blog) and still have money in the bank. As with self-love, what you define as financially stable depends on factors in your life and your perception of stability. 

To better understand how our mental health is negatively affected by instability and positively affected by stability here are a few examples:

Liz doesn’t have enough money to make an important payment. Her paycheck isn’t enough, and she’s too afraid to ask her family for help. The last time she reached out she was told that she needs to handle financial issues alone, because it was her choice to go to college. She becomes anxious, and blames herself for not taking on more hours. She doesn’t want to, but she has to pull money from her savings account. She’s now completed the payment of time, but her mood is only worsening. She feels like she failed herself by not saving more, and decides that her priorities are wrong. She prioritizes earning money over academics, to help ease her anxiety. 

Caleb spent all of winter break working full-time at a grocery store. Now that the spring semester has begun, he decides to only work on the weekends, to make time for academics and extracurriculars during the week. He doesn’t really need the money because he already saved enough to pay his out-of-pocket costs all at once, but he feels more secure maintaining a steady flow of income. He’s proud of himself for sacrificing his vacation to make the semester less stressful, and since he doesn’t have to worry about finances (much), he’s able to remain focused on his other goals. 

Parts of Liz’s story may remind you of yourself or someone you know, because we’ve all had moments where we didn’t see ourselves in a positive light. When you’re struggling financially, it can be difficult to be optimistic, and you may wind up blaming yourself for events outside of your control. Caleb’s story is relatable because we’ve all felt the relief of not having to worry about finances, maybe after receiving a nice-sized paycheck or some birthday cash. However, when you go through cycles of having and not having necessities, the instability can affect your thoughts and mood, which turns your once clear perception into tunnel vision. I’ve found that when I struggle to make payments, I also struggle to focus on anything else.

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Whether you relate to the struggle, or are simply entertained by my rant, make sure to leave a comment down below, follow us on social media, and stay tuned for part 2 of this post, where we will dive into the (possible) causes of the psychological effects mentioned above and discuss financial insecurities. 

Gif by Rebecca Hendin

Sources

Dictionary Definitions:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-love

https://thecollegeinvestor.com/21120/financially-stable/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/finance
Description of the Hierarchy and Critique: 
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Alternate Opinion of the Hierarchy: 

https://retirementsavvy.net/a-richer-understanding-thinking-about-maslow-and-poverty

Why I Have Chosen a PWI instead of HBCU as a Minority Student

There is a controversial topic about whether a Historically Black College/ University (HBCU)
or Predominantly White Institution (PWI) is better for African American students to attend. Some
people of color look down on others for not attending an HBCU; however both types of education
have their downfalls as well as their benefits. I’m here at Coe, so I have obviously chosen the
PWI route; and from my experiences so far I could definitely explain the benefits:

1. Money

Coe college has various benefits, but the most important one to me was money. It is so
expensive to be educated, and though colleges cause so much debt, the career I have a burning
passion for requires a LOT of education. PWIs have higher endowments than HBCUs, meaning
they receive more money/ financial assets. More endowments means that they have the ability
to give out more scholarships. If a college really cares about preparing you for the real world,
they will want to surround you with diversity because the real world is diverse, so they are
willing to give out even more money to people of color because they want us to attend to
increase diversity and add to the environment so that we can see the world from different
perspectives and understand other cultures.

2. Diversity/ Preparation for the Real World

They are called Predominately White Institutions, but people from almost every race attend
these colleges and universities. HBCUs have mostly African American students, so to go to
one would be staying in my comfort zone, seeing that I went to a predominantly African
American high school, and lived in a predominantly African American neighborhood.
Being in a different community than usual has given me an opportunity to have a more open
mind towards opinions and beliefs that I have never had before. Also, regardless of whether I
go to an HBCU or PWI, I will graduate going out into a predominantly Caucasian world with
many different minorities as well; so being at Coe, I have been learning more about different
cultures and opinions than I could in an environment like my neighborhood. This is giving me
the experience with a multitude of people that I will need.

3. First Hand Experience

If you are raised in poverty, then you’ve mostly only been surrounded by people who look like
you. Impoverished neighborhoods are usually segregated and not racially diverse; and as it is
apart of the curriculum, in your classes you learn about all of the problems that happened in
the US, and you learn that most of these terrible things occurred when Europeans came here.
History shapes the Europeans as selfish, lazy, greedy, always using people of color for hard
labor and treating them poorly along the way, and a number of other things. If you are in an
impoverished community, with mostly only people who look like you, chances are you’ve
never actually talked to a Caucasian person in real life, so you look at them as if they are the
exact same terrible people who did everything that you have learned in your history book. If
you have never actually talked to someone in another race, as humans we tend to use
stereotypes; and it is normalized, so most people of color have these negative preconceptions
of Caucasians upon meeting them ourselves. It is fair to say that coming here, this is the first
time that I have been surrounded by so much diversity, and I have only had positive
experiences thus far; so it gives us all a chance to break out of using the stereotypes that
we’ve gotten so comfortable with.

I don’t disagree with Historically Black Colleges/Universities or Predominantly White
Institutions. These are the reasons that I personally made my choice. Here at Coe, I am
thriving so far; and I have no complaints! I couldn’t have made a better decision.