The NFL Tells a Tale of Spirituality in our Society

The infamous declaration by Friedrich Nietzsche that "God is Dead" is often divorced from the context of Nietzsche's observations. In the medieval European city, the most important physical presence in any city was the Cathedral or Church. It was a physical manifestation of the place of God and religion in the life of the people who lived there.

In the modern city, buildings of commerce had taken the place of the Cathedral and commerce had taken the place of religion as the most prominent driving and organizing force in modern life. In his book, The Gay Science, Nietzsche elaborates that man has killed God by removing God from the center of his life. The truth in Nietzsche's critique is that during the 1900s a preponderance of "modern" people began to live as if God did not matter or exist and their actions showed a belief in materialism as an ends not as a means.

Materialism is the belief that only that which is material or physical is real or should matter and when applied to consumption, that mankind is primarily enhanced through the accumulation of wealth and the consumption and possession of goods. The problem with materialism is that it is partially true; as having some financial resources and goods makes a big difference when one is dealing with the basic needs in life. (See my earlier blog on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in relation to affluence and self-fulfillment.)

What does the National Football League (NFL) in general and the new stadium in the Dallas Metroplex tell us about spirituality in today's society?

Let me digress for a moment. When I was a senior in high school at Kenmore West in a suburb of Buffalo, NY back in 1976, I took a ten week course in Sports Literature. For my final project I wrote a futuristic account of how the NFL had become a religion, its cheers had become prayers, its stadiums had become cathedrals and football games had become ritual public celebrations. I received an A+ on that assignment.

The popularity of the NFL has shown us that we are still fascinated by gladiators competing nearly 2000 years after the peak of Rome, that we still seek a shared ritualistic event and that as our basic needs are met and society has attained unprecedented historical affluence that entertainment, with the power to create an optimal experience, has become a substitute for the transformative experiences that were once provided only in churches and temples or in Rome in the Coliseum.

Everyday life pales against the back drop of participating as a fanatic or voyeur in these large arena/stadium events. We can enjoy and become lost in the experience, even though we know that it is "just a game".

The aura of the NFL should remind us that we are still connected to the brutal and physical nature of life and survival. It also tells us that we seek connection to something bigger than ourselves, we enjoy participating in ritual as a means of connection and that these experiences provide a brief but transformative alternative reality that is powerful.

When fully engaged in one's spiritual path, it is important to stay grounded in the brutal and physical nature of the world. True transformation or enlightenment comes after accepting the reality of human nature and human capacity for good and evil.

When creating from a place of personal vision and self empowerment, we not only have the ability to bring our passion and our values into the tangible world but in doing so, we open the door to creating a powerful experience that creates meaning for ourselves and a connection to others.

Financial Independence: Materialism and Fulfillment

When creating legacy, financial independence is about resources and means that are focused upon fulfillment as the end result not about the creation of additional material wealth as the end result although this may occur.

Materialism as defined by Merriam-Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/materialism
b) a doctrine that the only or the highest values or objectives lie in material well-being and in the furtherance of material progress

When Madonna sang that she was "living in a material world" and that she was a "material girl". There was no need for a cultural explanation as we live in a world where material well-being, wealth and possessions are how we measure much of our success.

The allure and problem with materialism is that it works in part. Many of the most troublesome difficulties we face are those things that "work in part". The first money and first material possessions that a person obtains have a great positive impact on that person's life. In terms of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs (first published 1943), they are used to meet the survival needs of food and shelter.

As you progress up Maslow's hierarchy to the Need for Love and Self Esteem money matters but increasingly less so. I remember in college being so poor at times, that I avoided dating because I could not afford it. I did not have enough money to take someone out to eat, did not have transportation and was somewhat embarrassed about in the relative wealth of my roommates and friends at Syracuse.

As our spending increases from necessities to comfort items our fulfillment per dollar spending drops off. When our spending moves from comforts to luxuries our fulfillment per dollar of spending not only drops off but can easily go negative. I first came across this concept while taking an audio course, Transforming Your Relationship With Money: Achieving Financial Integrity, Intelligence & Independence by Joe Dominguez. http://www.simpleliving.net/main//item.asp?itemid=930

Joe Dominguez died in 1997, but he formed the not-for-profit educational organization, the New Road Map Foundation with Vicki Robin. They published a book on the course called, Your Money or Your Life. You do not need to be as frugal as Joe or Vicki to enjoy the benefits of the insights and tools offered in the course and book.
http://www.financialintegrity.org/index.php?title=About_the_New_Road_Map_Foundation

My revelation for taking this course was not my experience as a poor student at Syracuse but rather my experience 15 years later when my income moved from $80,000 to $190,000 in a short time frame. This sudden relative affluence was followed by an increase in spending but not an increase in fulfillment.

As your standard of living increases the need to maintain a certain income and the complexity of your life also increases. To maintain my income, I found myself away from home about 15 of the 20 mid-week days of the month. I stayed in nice hotels and ate at nice restaurants with my business partner and clients while my children grew up at home with their mother. I also found myself as time went on doing work that was not fulfilling for people that I would not have spent time with if they were not paying me. (I did do a lot of fulfilling work with a lot of wonderful people but this was not always the case and as the financial pressures of the business grew we took work in a few very difficult environments.)

I began to question the fulfillment that I was gaining from both my spending and my income. In the area of spending, I began to make spending versus saving decisions. If I cut an area of spending then I could capture the savings and then make investments which would provide future income.

I began by measuring and then questioning the amount of fulfillment I was gaining from various categories of spending. Convenience restaurant eating (fast food and similar) was an area that our family had begun to spend a lot of money upon due to the pace of life. The food and experience was not very good but it was convenient. My estimate was that we were spending nearly $5000 per year on this. The fulfillment oriented decision was to only use convenience restaurants once per week and to work out a shopping plan and menu to handle most of the need for convenience.

We were able to implement this, save several thousand dollars per year and gain fulfillment through a healthier diet and saner eating experience around our dinner table. (I am not claiming that our dinner table was sane but it was saner than the same five people eating in a convenience restaurant.)

When you look at costs look at the annual cost of something. Dunkin Donuts coffee on the way to work costs about $2 a cup and 50 weeks times 5 days equals a $500 expense. For any daily business related expense you can use this metric: daily cost times 250 = annual expense. A $4 cup of Starbucks (my favorite) times 250 equals $1000. While I occasionally drink a cup of Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks coffee, I buy good coffee at Costco and make it myself at a cost of about $120 per year. By the way, I invested money in Starbucks in the late 1990's and made a decent profit from other people's coffee spending habits.

If you annualize your spending categories, you can get some insight into how you can transform your spending to create a pool of money for investing. Further blogs will discuss more thoroughly how relatively conservative long-term investments can help you create real financial independence that supports your spiritual path and creative vision.