money matters

Do I really not care about money?

mum: Wah! You've got two stories published today! How much you think you'll get???

I rattle off some possible figures.

mum: Wow! Very good! Not bad at all!

me: Actually, I'm so sick of writing...don't feel like writing anymore...no motivation...

mum: How can you say that? Earn money while you are young. How can you just study and not work?

me: Why not? I have enough savings what! Aiya, you all always have that typical workaholic mentality. Must keep earning money. Why can't I just relax?

mum: Yah, you young people now have it better. No pressure to earn money.

Is there anything wrong with that?

No, seriously, if I'm going to constantly compare myself with the people who have it worse, then the comparisons will be endless. Wouldn't I be denying myself the freedom that I deserve? In other words, is it wrong for me to have been born in a family that allows me to have a certain extent of financial freedom?

I don't know if it's the Singapore that we live in that's made its citizens feel like every second lost is money gone. I don't blame my mother for thinking this way, because after all she did have to slog to bring up my brother and I singlehandedly. Yet, at the same time, I find it especially irksome to be pressured into becoming a money-making machine, just because it seems totally stupid to pass on a great opportunity to earn big bucks.

Or is it just me?

Do I really see money as that unimportant? I know for sure that a big part of this mentality stems from never having been in need at all. So, the bigger question is, am I being lazy as a result?

Could it be a gradual loss of interest in writing for publications?

I don't know. I find more and more that I'm just following a formula, just filling up a space, just doing a job. Something that I'd felt even when doing full-time writing.

Or do I have a short attention span?
Is it a three-year itch?
A need to find something new to do each time?
A desire to take a break?
A yearning to enrich myself?

I don't know. But I'll just take it one step at a time.

Maybe I'll love money soon, probably when I have to buy my marital home - that shrunken unit called a flat that the government leases to us for 99 years for helluva lot of cash. Maybe then, yes maybe then, I'll really love money.