Money and Meaning: The Course
Money and Meaning: The Course
Finding Enoughness within Capitalism
For all its benefits, capitalism creates two feelings: never having enough, the hamster wheel of consumption, and never feeling enough, the hamster wheel of achievement and performative display. Both are addictions of the ego. This 8 week course is a spiritual contemplation of capitalism. Our economic system is both an obstacle and a path to finding the satisfaction, presence, and sufficiency already within you.
Tier A: $997 ($60/hr or above wage earners)
Tier B: $697 ($30-$59/hr wage earners)
Tier C: $497 ($16-$29/hr wage earners)
Tier D: $297 ($15/hr or below wage earners)
The two pillars of our economic system: consumerism and workism rest on the belief that “there is not enough” and “more is better.” How can we let go of the distracted, uneasy feeling of insufficiency and find within ourselves grace, gratitude, and ease?
Ideology is what you do without knowing you are doing it. This program helps you resist the constant need to achieve self-worth in our society and the feeling of never having or being enough. This program helps you examine time, attention, satisfaction, scarcity, and sufficiency and how they all relate to the two pillars of our economic system: consumerism and “workism.”
The course will be 8 lessons, 1 per week for 8 weeks. We’ll have a 30 minute Zoom meet and greet on September 29 at 10am PST to meet each other and go over the process:
I'll post new readings on the Monday of each week. The readings are short.
You can arrange your walk-and-talk with your partner anytime during the week.
By Sunday, post your short reaction so everyone (including me!) can read it. One or two paragraphs at most.
Reach out by DM to someone new to arrange that week's walk-and-talk.
This program is designed to be contemplative and self-reflective. This is a class in non-self-improvement: a gentle place to see how you are, how you feel, and how you relate in the world. Each lesson is a short essay by me, about 5-10 minutes of reading, and a prompt to have a conversation with classmate. The insight will come from drawing out and verbalizing your feelings and understanding of capitalism, belonging, and worthiness and listening to your conversation partner’s. You’ll be contemplating the emotional consequences of our economic system, as experienced by you, and how you want to be alive in the world. Here is a preview of lesson 1.
The coaching program is laid out in 8 weeks:
What is your deepest longing?
Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency
Individualism, Belonging, and Bourgeois Capitalism
The Daily Task: “Achieving” Worthiness
Lagom: The Freedom of Having and Being Enough
Everything Sped Up: Busyness and Experiencing Your Emotions
Primary Satisfactions: Attention, Presence, and Connection
Holding Gratitude and Grief
If you are interested, please send an email to have a conversation about your interest in the course.
“My mind stretched to new places and can never go back. I gained a new intimacy with life itself.” — Jill
“I loved the space and trust that Douglas created to drop into deep and vulnerable conversations about some of life’s big questions around longing, sufficiency, presence, and connection. The fact that most of these conversations were the very first between me and my partner was even more magical. I wish there were more opportunities like this.” — Rebecca
“It’s helped me to recognize some of the insidious messages I’ve absorbed without fully realizing it, messages that run counter to my values but that have affected me nonetheless. It’s helped me to start to REALLY understand what an impossible system we’ve been forced into. And it’s helped me to introduce some really beautiful practices into my life -- a sacred personal weekly ritual and a new way of deciding whether to spend money on something or how to spend my time in a given moment, by asking myself what will add the most TRUE value to my life. Thank you for this.” — Mark
Douglas Tsoi, JD, is the founder of the School of Financial Freedom and writer of Money and Meaning, a well-received newsletter about the intersection of personal finance and spirituality. He is a trained Franciscan spiritual director and lives in Portland, Oregon