How much money do I really want to earn?

Money is what (almost) everyone is looking for in life, and many of us spend our entire lives trying to collect more of it. It’s what people fight for and kill each other for; wars between peaceful nations even begin because of money.

As a business-owner, I had different reasons I wanted to start my business, and earning a decent income was obviously one of them. But everything around me encourages and pushes me to achieve more, sign on bigger clients, scale the company size and be the next unicorn. It can be overwhelming to feel that regardless of what you’ve done so far, you’re still a long way away from achieving something similar to other people’s accomplishments. This is what made me stop and re-define success for myself.

I always thought about how much money would be enough for me. How much money would I need to have before I said to myself, “That’s enough; go ahead and do whatever you want rather than trying to earn more.”? Would I ever say no to more business and more money?

Imagine a farmer who raises animals — and to feed those animals, he needs to grow plants. He isn’t interested in the plants; his interest is in raising the animals.

If this farmer grew fewer plants than the animals needed, they would die of hunger. But at the same time, he can’t grow such a huge number of plants that he’s too busy to take care of his animals. He can’t risk the animals getting sick or dying because he’s too busy with the plants to take care of his animals, right?

The same concept applies to my point about money. I started to think that I need to earn just enough money to achieve certain goals. If I earn less than that, I won’t be able to achieve these goals and if I earn more money than is necessary, I may become too busy to work on these goals. So money should be a tool, rather than an end goal in itself.

This brought me to my next question:

What are my goals?

I always rejected the idea of living a miserable life trying to collect more money and then spend it on having fun and buying more stuff that I don’t need. As a Muslim, I know that Allah (God) never encourages us to preoccupy ourselves with simply collecting more money; rather he encourages us to spend our money on helping people, and warns us not to become spendthrifts.

I also know that power (whether it’s financial power or another kind) is a test from Allah. Allah tested some people by giving them less money than they needed to see whether they would try to earn more money in inappropriate ways, whilst also testing others by giving them more money than they needed to see whether they would thank Allah and help those who in need or not.

Back to my goals. The rule I set for myself when thinking about money is that as long as I’m using the money that Allah has gifted me to help people, then it’s OK to try to earn more and help more people. However, as soon as I feel money has begun to be my end goal in itself and started to distract me from what Allah has commanded me to do and from doing good deeds, this is a warning to me that I should stop and fix my intentions, otherwise money will become a curse.

So I have to be very careful and intentional with how I spend every penny that Allah has given me. This is especially true given that how I spend my money will be one of the three things that Allah will ask me about when I die — and I’m always concerned about how I’m going to answer this question.

One of the stories that influences my thinking is that of a Muslim scholar who was giving a lecture when a man came from outside to interrupt him twice and whisper something in his ears. In both instances, the scholar responded, “Alhamdulillah” -praise be to God-. After the class, several people asked the scholar about what this man had said to him.

He answered that the first time, the man told him that the ship that’s carrying all his wealth sank into the sea, so he said, “Alhamdulillah” and continued his lecture. Next, the man came in again and told him that he was mistaken; that his ship is fine and that the sunken ship wasn’t his, so the scholar said, “Alhamdulillah” again and continued his lecture. For me, it’s fascinating how this scholar really understands that the true meaning of money is as a tool, rather than a goal, that’s why he didn’t get upset when he lost all his wealth.

Personally, I know that I’m going to die and leave everything behind for my family, business partners, or whoever is still alive and what will remain for me is only the good deeds I did during my life.