So far, I’ve given a mostly theoretical answer to the questions ‘What’s gone wrong with money?’ and ‘What’s wrong with more?’. To summarise:

• Money, in our wallets, on our bank accounts, borrowed or not, is an interest-bearing debt. Or, more accurately said, money is systematically turned into an interest-bearing debt.
• People who use a means of payment accepted by banks are trading in debt and working for debt.
• This interest-bearing debt game inevitably creates an insatiable society. Because there’s always more debt than money to pay off the debt, there’s always more that needs to go back into the system than what’s coming out, so the promised land of Enough is always pushed ahead faster than we can work towards it.

Gaining insight into these dynamics has been immensely valuable to me. For one, a better understanding of the worldly stress I already felt as a child has enormously helped me to step out of that stress. But the real value—and confrontation—came when I started seeing how deeply never enough permeates the planet, society, people, and myself.

The rest of this chapter will focus on:

• The confusion that turned economic growth into a holy grail;
• the impact of this confusion on our mental, emotional and even physical health;
• the poverty that we breed by clinging to this phenomenon called ‘competition’;
• the wonderful kernel of truth at the core of it all.