Many people belief that money is the root of all evils. It the long history of mankind, there had been evidences that money was the cause of destructions in many societies. Inevitably, whether we like it or not, we are living in the age where life seems to be centred around money. It has been ubiquitous that the focus of today’s media, politics, and our own life, is on money, and it seems that we cannot escape from it.
Obviously, in today’s environment, we are not able to live without money. We need money to buy things, be it for our necessities or desirables. We may ask ourselves, why we do have to work, and spent eight hours or even more at our office, even though we may not like our office environment, our superiors or our colleagues. The fact is that we must go to work every day, to earn money to live. We need money for all kind of purposes in our life. We need money to maintain our health, to pursue our study, and many more. In short, money is essential as it brings for man all his necessities, desirables, and luxuries for the comfort of his existence. Of course, we may have heard wise words, such as money cannot buy us happiness, but truly, do we feel secure, safe, calm, and happy when we find out that that our bank account is zero or even negative? Moreover, if we see money in a more appropriate context, we can say that money can give us a meaningful life. For instance, with money, we can develop our abilities, and have freedom to pursue the things that we enjoy in our life.
However, the problem in our society arises when money is fuelled by an inner human attitude, which is called “greed” and this has led to the unbecoming events in our society, and as a result, reduced the value of human life. For instance, we had heard news about siblings quarrelling among each other for inheritance, parents forcing their daughter to marry a rich man, and politicians selling their integrity, self-esteem and trust of the people, simply for the sake of money. More so, most people live by the creed that money can buy everything in this world, and as such, they are unable to determine how much money is enough for them.
Nevertheless, people’s perception towards money has changed over the years amidst the increasing significant of personal finance education in our society. In particular, more people are becoming aware of the concept of “financial freedom” or interchangeably called “financial independence”, and this provides a better perspective for the people in shaping their attitude towards dealing with money in their life.
The concept of financial freedom is so important amidst the prevailing environment, both in terms of economic and human values. The concept could mean different things to different people. For some people, they probably see that financial freedom is by having more than enough money to cover their cost of living, without having to work actively. While for young people, they may see financial freedom as the ability to earn sufficiently without the need to burden their parents. It could also relate to the ability to do things that we want, whenever we want. For some people, financial freedom is attributed to the situation whereby should there be any worst-case scenario happening in the environment, for example, lost of employment or natural disaster, they do not have to worry about money, as they can still survive and fulfil their day-to-day obligations. According to personal finance experts, financial freedom is a term widely used to describe the state of having sufficient personal wealth to live, without having to work actively in order to fulfil basic needs. In other words, financial freedom is achieved when we are no longer need to work for money, but we are still earning income in our bank account. This type of income has been defined as “passive income”. Technically speaking, in order to achieve financial freedom, one passive income must exceed one monthly expenses.
Nonetheless, we may have misunderstood between the concept financial freedom and the state of being rich. In this regard, financial freedom is defined not by how much one has in one’s bank account. In other words, it is not define by net worth, and more importantly, is not the same as being rich, as often been misunderstood. As an illustration, a person could be completely achieve financial freedom by having an income of just RM50,000 year, whilst another person who earn RM1 million a month, can still be constricted in the realm of financial “slavery”, amidst debt. Furthermore, the idea of “freedom” may also means freedom from unethical conduct and values, such destroying honesty, integrity and honour, for the sake of earning money. Therefore, even though a person possesses an astronomical amount of money, but the source of his money is through unethical approach and violates the norms of humanity, this kind of person will remain as a slave of money, and thus he is not achieving financial freedom.
Significantly, religion, culture, values, socio-economic status and other variables may influence our attitudes and habits towards our money and financial matters. This will eventually determine what kind of lifestyle that we want to live. Therefore, financial freedom is a concept not only centred on technical aspects or calculation part of money and financial management, but it goes beyond, as it encompasses our personalities, behaviour and ethical values. A truly financial freedom is achieved when one has the ability to resist and control certain things in dealing with the sources and uses of one’s money, hence partaking the righteous decisions in whatever situation, either in prosperity or in hardship. The holy Qu’ran had mentioned about the characteristics of the person who will receive forgiveness and reward from Allah, and these characters include the ability to spend or we can say to deal with his wealth or money freely without been constraint by prosperity or adversity. The verse reads: “Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord, and for a Garden whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth, prepared for the righteous, Those who spend (freely), whether in prosperity, or in adversity; who restrain anger, and pardon (all) men; for Allah loves those who do good.” (3: 133 – 134). Certainly, one who can deal freely with his money in prosperity or adversity is the one who has achieved financial freedom.
The concept of financial freedom is vital in today’s environment, as it would make us becoming a truly happy person in our life, rather than conceding ourselves to the obsession of being rich, amidst greed. The bigger benefit is that through achieving financial freedom, we will be able to view the world and humanity in different perspectives.