Oh $%#$%$

"J, I have to call you out on something. You tend to talk a lot about the bargains that you find, and how much stuff costs. I understand why you do, but there are others out there who grew up differently...they might interpret what you say the wrong way. Be mindful of the assumptions other people might make about who you are and what you actually value."

I'm sitting here, somewhat worried that two people who I loved dearly misread my position on money. When I first sat down to write this piece, I thought I was going to talk about Asian and American perceptions of money, and how the difference between those two cultures has hurt me. I wanted to complain that I'd been misunderstood, that if I'd been mindful of the American taboo towards discussing money in everyday conversation, I wouldn't have been misjudged by the two people who I most desperately wanted to understand me.

Instead, I'm more worried that they read me right. Not that I worship wealth, or that I'm cheap, or that I'm penny-wise and pound-foolish; rather, that I may have overvalued money's ability to effect change in the world, and consequently undervalued the other aspects of life that are far more important for making meaning.

I don't know. Two years out of school, I'm wishing I wasn't so independent. I miss the days when money's only purpose was to buy me my weekly comic stash and let me have a quiet Friday evening amongst friends and familiar places. Since then, it's taken on far too many additional functions. I now think about how it should provide for the people I care about, both now and in the future. I think about what opportunities it permits and creates. I think about the responsibility that it demands of me, that I must ensure it doesn't get squandered when it is placed in my hands.

I miss being able to just trust that all that I need would be provided for me, and that I could just be surprised by whatever came my way. I felt free to do what I felt like doing, without having to think about how it affected my future self.

There's something paradoxical about all this. As a kid, it felt easier to trust--not because everything went smoothly, but because I didn't have any control over how things went. All I had to do was watch and see.

Nowadays, every decision seems to require some amount of choice on my part. And annoyingly, so many of those choices seem to involve money in some way or form. It's far less clear to me what trusting God looks like in the matters where I'm asked to have a decision. I can't do nothing, and I can't do everything. I dwell in the in-between. Sometimes I see that I didn't have any control, and I speak of God's provision. But most of the time, I'm just working off of what I know. On the big things, I try to listen. I usually don't hear anything.

What would it be like to be the kid sleeping in the back seat again? And what does that look like now that I'm no longer allowed to just sleep?

Do me a favor, dear reader...I am blind to the ways in which I'm being held captive by money. Call me out on those areas so that I may address them.