Money, desire and pancakes

Fiona writes: When I was little, my mum would make me and my brother pancakes.

We would sit impatiently at the kitchen table as she stood at the stove and slaved away. They took so LONG to cook. One side. Then the other. Then a delicious circle of golden pancake, kissed with lemon & sugar and eaten in three bites. And then the endless wait for the next.

Worse, there were two of us. We had to take turns. Oh, the agony of watching my brother eat his pancake while mine was still liquid in the pan!

I've been thinking some more about money after my post about money on Sunday. The book I'm reading about money is of the 'money is unlimited' variety. I feel a little (a lot) sceptical about this, as I know for sure that the earth's resources aren't unlimited, and that some of our luxury depends on poorer country's lack. I know that pancakes aren't unlimited.

But.


I think there is a message for me in the book somewhere. It speaks about allowing yourself to desire things, and feeling entitled to them. It speaks about getting on with your work as well as you can in the meantime, and trusting that these items or experiences will come to you. It speaks about enjoying every mouthful of them when they arrive.

What the book hasn't said yet (maybe it will) is that if we can experience our desires in that 'clean' way, we are satiated when we've had enough. Sometimes enough is a beautifully made, expensive coat that will last us ten winters, and sometimes it's a cheap pair of cotton trousers.

The book does speak about our fear of surrendering into our desire, and of becoming greedy. I can certainly identify with that, especially as I want to be a 'good Buddhist' (whatever that is). It tells us in no uncertain terms that we don't have to worry about that.

In my experience, I feel more greedy when I'm more anxious about not getting something. When I was seven years old, I hadn't yet learnt that there would be more pancakes - next month, or next year. I hadn't yet learnt that after several pancakes I would feel full.

I ate pancakes for breakfast today. A pile of three generously sized circles. Made with hazelnut milk, and drenched in real maple syrup. Puddles of it.

After eating two and a half, I felt full. I left the rest on my plate.

If you'd told me when I was seven that I'd leave pancake on my plate, I would never have believed you.

Sometimes our feelings of want are complicated, and consist of 'clean' wants as well as dysfunctional, avoidant ones (i.e. buying a coat to distract ourselves from the tax bill we're not facing). Sometimes we just want the coat. I don't have a better way of describing that at the moment. The only way of knowing which is which is asking ourselves and listening for an answer. If we want the coat for the former reason, we should deal with our tax bill instead.

So here is my tentative hypothesis so far: we can trust our desire. If we allow ourselves, as my book keeps telling me, to relax and follow what we love - and then to love what we receive - then we will feel satiated when we've had enough.

Maybe we can have what we want. But what we want isn't as huge as we think. Two and a half pancakes is plenty.

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'Pancake Heaven' by garretkeogh via Creative Commons with thanks