Money, relationships and goals form the triangle of life. You can have goals, but you will never really pursue them, unless you bring in an element of emotional value, says Arfeen Khan

For most of us living in the modern times, life is money. The desire to make money seems to have corroded every other aspect of our lives. It has corroded relationships. For instance, people marry for money. It has corroded even religion. People bribe God with money to beget more money! But does money make you happy?

Many people have the illusion that money can make them happy. That is the reason why they spend most of their time making money. Making money is not really difficult; it is managing the earned money that is difficult. I made a lot of money when I had the correct opportunity but unfortunately lost most of it in due course of time, as I did not know how to manage it.

Managing money

When you do not know how to manage your money, you end up wasting it. When I was young and my pockets were full, I was a spendthrift. Whenever I went to buy a shirt I would pick up all the colours available! My credit card was always over booked. If I went on a holiday, I would take ten people with me and pay for the entire trip. I naively disregarded the importance of money management. Realisation dawned only after losing all the money that I had made.

Money management is an art and you should master it.

If your objective is to be a millionaire you need to learn the trick of the trade. Learn money management: Increase your knowledge about financial investment. As your money grows, you grow with it. Do not be like the jackpot winners who blow up their windfall gains because they do not know how to handle money.

However, as you race ahead to make money, remember that money is an important aspect of life; you cannot live without money, but it is definitely not the centre of life. Do not let moneymaking become the focus of your life. Earn money to live; do not live to earn money.

Love is the driving force in every relationship, but it has to be supported by understanding and acceptance. All of us have relationships and no relationship is problem-free. Problems in relationships are very delicate. The only way to solve them is with love, understanding and acceptance.

Types of relationships

There are three types of relationships in the world. The first one is based on give and take, “If you do this to me, I will do this to you” which is one of the worst relationships to find yourself in.

The second type is one in which you start doing things for each other without expecting anything in return. However, there is a danger of indifference creeping in such a kind of relationship.

The third type of relationship is the ultimate one. It is a relationship that makes you say, “I will do whatever it takes to make this person happy.” You are happy because those you care for are happy. This is possible only with unconditional love, affection and respect.

Many people believe that arguments are detrimental to the growth of relationships, but I believe that the greatest way of getting to know an individual is to argue with him or her.

An argument is the most valuable yardstick of measuring the intensity and depth of human relationships. But care has to be taken that arguments should remain arguments and not turn into quarrels.

Another thing that plays a major role in relationships is emotion. Uncontrolled negative emotions can destroy a relationship. Similarly, uncontrolled positive emotions can also stifle a relationship. But emoting is human nature and you should not over control your emotions either. So, like money, even emotions need to be managed.

The goal

Most of them do not know the purpose of their lives. In fact, 80 percent of humanity does not know why they are alive.

Having a fixed goal in life is important. Obviously, you have taken birth to accomplish a certain goal. Find out what it is. Are you working towards it or do you get lost in the mundane routine of your daily life?

What is your goal, your purpose in life? To make lots of money, or to build your family. If your answer is an enthusiastic “Yes!” then that is the reason for you to jump out of bed each day and to exclaim, “Good morning world, here I am! And I just can’t wait to work hard and build a future for my family!”

Finding your goal may take time, but once you have it in front of you, it should become a constant target. It took me nine years to work out my goals. I went through a lot of soul-searching during this phase. My definition of life’s goal is that it is something that “you have to have.”

Something you cannot survive without, something like the air you breathe. We need to have a goal in our life, a purpose that makes living worthwhile.

The burning desire

Let me tell you how I found my goal. When I was twelve-years old, I decided that I wanted to become successful in life. My parents came from a very normal background; they were not very rich. We lived in an ordinary three-bedroom house in London, a typical middle-class family. I used to watch my father work day in and day out for as long as 15 hours a day. I said to myself, “Why does he have to work so hard? Why does he have to work 15 hours a day to provide for the family?” I decided that I am not going to do that. There is no way, I will work 15 hours a day and deprive my family of my love and companionship. If I do work for 15 hours a day, it will be because I want to create a given income or because those hours are going to be pure fun. It was then that I realised the importance of having a goal in life, or what I love to call, “a burning desire”!

There is a very interesting part to having goals. You can have goals, but you will never really pursue them unless you bring in an element of emotional value. If you consider my case carefully, I had attached an emotional value to my life’s goal. It came out of my relationship with my parents. I knew that they worked very hard for us and I was not going to let them work hard any more. I was going to raise the necessary money and do whatever it took to make sure that my parents never work for the rest of their lives.

Your goals should be linked to your relationships, to your family, to your children and to yourself. Only then, you will be motivated enough to attain them.

People often ask me, “Arfeen why did you leave England and come to India? Most people want to go to the West. Why have you come to the East?” I tell them that I have a goal and an emotional value attached to it. My grandfather had built a fantastic business empire in Kolkata. But unfortunately, he was cheated and the whole business collapsed. My grandfather died in 1968, a heartbroken man. My mother used to tell us: “One day, I would love to have that business back and build an empire again.” My brother and I secretly decided that one day we would go back to India and regain that lost empire.

Excerpt from ‘You Can, You Will: It’s Your Choice’ by Arfeen Khan; Macmillan India Limited