Apparently, the mystery as a genre for literature and, by extension film, has been around for only about 200 years. Prior to then, police weren’t really trying to solve crimes. Seems odd doesn’t it? We are used to finding answers. We want to know how it happen, what caused it, and who did it, don’t we?
Before there were “mysteries” there were other stories that had something to discover, solve or bring to resolution.
The point is, as humans, we don’t really like being left in the dark. We want things to be explained, to make sense. We want to know.
Think of all those questions kids ask. For example, as Bill Cosby said: “Why is there air?”
Personally, I think one of the things that we learn to accept as we ‘mature’ is that some things will never actually be revealed to us. In spite of Facebook, we may never know what happened to our best friend in 2nd grade. We may never find out where the missing cat collar is. We may never know what happened to Amelia Earhart.
We want to know, but mysteries, large and small, surround us.
Ironically, most people think of money as a mysterious thing. They don’t know where it goes, what happened to it, how it got so messed up. It’s baffling.
Or is it?
Our favorite detectives use clues and forensics to solve their mysteries. They gather evidence, make hypotheses and deductions, and come to conclusions. For them, the issue is getting the evidence. When it comes to money, that is actually a fairly simple piece. The evidence is, as it often is in the TV mystery, found by following the money. Or more precisely, actually looking at what the money is telling you. Money has oodles of information to share with you…what you have to do is actually look at it.
If you choose to look, you can solve the mystery, understand the why, and change the pieces that aren’t working for you. Money won’t judge you, or nag you, it will just tell you what you have chosen to do. And if you don’t ‘ask’ then money won’t ‘tell’, and we all know how well that plan works in the long run.
You can ‘talk’ to your money by looking at your credit card statements, saving your receipts, noting what you are doing with it. Think about it, your money could tell you when you were sick, when you feel sad, when you are happy, when you moved; all sorts of things. If you look at how you spend it and how you make it, it will tell you what you are doing. Part of solving your mystery may be discovering that the reason why you feel like money isn’t working for you is because you are spending it on things that you don’t really value or care about.
So ask money what’s going on, and solve the mystery!