gossip girl might scare you away from wanting to be rich 🙈

but maybe I can inspire you to be brave anyway ✨

I’ve been watching a lot of Gossip Girl lately. And beyond the soap level drama whiplash between Chuck and Blair (my ultimate ‘ship), it is the perfect cultural capsule for how our society views having fuck tons of money.

The people on the outside of this rich world are constantly clamoring to get a piece of our main cast; exposing every dirty secret; and foaming at the mouth to see them crumble to the ground.

The people on the inside are constantly trying to scheme and one up each other for love, sex, drugs, status, and money.

All the outsiders boldly proclaim how these rich families only care about money and how superficial and materialistic they are. And while that may be true about a couple people in the main cast, for the most part, you see these people trying to prove once and for all, and to everyone, that their priorities run deeper than their houses and their money.

If you took this piece of media in a vacuum, I can totally understand why you wouldn’t want to be rich. Like, ever. Let’s face it, there isn’t much media out there that portrays rich people in a positive light or in a way that makes you think of them as human or feel bad for their problems at all. (Another great series is The Fall of the House of Usher)

This may be where you are. Consuming comments, shows, movies, vlogs, and more about rich people and about how their problems aren’t real or valid and how shallow, immoral, and vapid the whole community is, and I wouldn’t blame you.

Hubs and I were watching a show the other day and we were watching this woman spend all day making art and enjoying her life and he said something like, “Ugh, she is so rich she just gets to lay around and paint all day.” And I said in response to him, “Isn’t that the fucking goal?”

How can you ever let yourself become rich (or even have more than just enough), if you vilify every person who might surround you, yourself, AND what you might get to do if you actually didn’t have to work for a living?

I need you to see that rich people are just people. And they deal with anxiety, depression, body image, friendships, love, family drama, pain, grief…just like we do. They don’t have to worry about food in their pantries or a roof over their or even their college tuition, but isn’t that the dream?

Isn’t it everyone’s dream to not have to work for a living? To pursue the arts, read all day, spend time with the kids, travel, and take a nap in the middle of the afternoon?

If you want those things, too, how can you hate and judge the version of you that has them?

When you imagine yourself rich, does your skin crawl? Do you get sick to your stomach because you don’t see money as simplifying your life, you see it as a massive complication? A huge drama starter?

There are many times that I’ve heard people I know say things like “poor little rich girl and her problems, wah.” I’ve definitely read hundreds of comments online to that effect and that always makes me sad.

Don’t get me wrong, rich people aren’t all angels and the point of this piece is not to defend billionaires, specifically. It’s not all black and white. There are rich assholes and there are poor assholes. The money, or lack of money, is not what makes them assholes. There are bratty children who throw tantrums when they don’t get their way on every inch of income spectrum.

I’m not going to go into the whole nature vs. nurture debate, but I hope you can sniff that what I’m trying to say is that people become who they are despite the number in their bank account.

I think it’s brave to desire to be rich in this “eat the rich” era.

We’ve witnessed billionaires being torn to shreds on social media, and guess what, I’m still out here telling you that it’s safe to have more than enough. It’s safe to thrive.

Release money from it’s bad reputation and stigma.
Release your rich self from your own judgement.

Give yourself the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be the coolest rich person you know.

And if you’d just squeal for some support healing your relationship with money, you know where to find me.