Observations from the corporate world: When your managers encourage you to spend money

In the last few months, I've come up with an observation. My managers have been encouraging me to spend more money and enjoy life more. It started when I would talk to my superiors about marriage and children and how I want to have nothing to do with those. They tried to imply that those bring great happiness to your life.

My managers also encourage me to travel the world and see lots of different countries and people. I respond by saying I've never really had a desire to see other countries or cultures. I don't derive joy from seeing other places. I derive fulfillment by doing different things and achieving things like lifting more weight or running a faster mile.

When I was having car troubles, I spent hundreds of dollars repairing my car when everyone else was telling me to just spend the money on a new car. I responded by saying that it would be cheaper to maintain the car that I already have rather than try to find a new car.

Everyone told me that I should really just crack down and buy a smart phone but I can't do that when my prepaid phone costs me less than $10 per month.

In the past, they have tried to encourage me to move into an apartment closer to the office. I had to decline because that would be really expensive.

I know why they encourage me to do this. Spending money on things can improve the quality of your life. I wouldn't have to spend 2 to 3 hours in traffic a day. I could play Angry Birds and surf the net on my phone. I could drive without worrying about breaking down in the middle of traffic and blocking a road off.

However, I can't help to think that they have an another motive. Intentional or not, I believe they want me to be more dependent on my job. The higher my cost of living, the more dependent I become on my income. This builds security for the employer in that the employee is less likely to leave if the work environment becomes too hostile. My desires would bind me to my job making it harder for me to leave whenever I wanted to.

Once again, this is the reason why I am a minimalist and why I encourage minimalism. You own your things. Your things don't own you.

If I drop my phone in my coffee, it is no big deal. It only costs $30 to replace. If my car gets scratched, dented, or dinged, I don't care. It isn't a Benz.

A few weeks ago, my computer got infected with malware. I simply did a factory reset because I had nothing important on the hard drive. No headache there.

It is funny. I am thinking about that story in the Bible when Jesus is wandering in the desert for 40 days. He meets Satan and Satan tries to tempt Jesus with a bunch of stuff.

Bow down to me and I'll give you a bunch of cities and guarantee that everyone will worship you including inanimate objects like rocks.

And Jesus refused because he didn't care about any of that stuff. It didn't matter to him.