When most people think of the word “currency” they immediately think of money, but money is not what I’m talking about when I refer to the word “currency”. Money, such as the ‘euro’ and the ‘dollar’, have no real value.

Whatever name it is given, in reality they are just scraps of paper that we use as a medium of exchange for material things. But when we talk about real, spiritual currency, I’m talking about time and attention. Every day we spend time, and pay attention to other beings or things that are valuable to us. When I speak of time I am not speaking of the travels of celestial bodies, but of the duration of our experience which we call ‘life’. For example, when we love someone, we literally give a portion of our life to them because we care about them so much. When your loved ones need someone to listen to them, you give them your precious attention because you are interested and care about them. The small amount of attention and time we give to each other is far more valuable than illusory “money”.

Look at Frank in the attached picture, who strives all his life to become rich. He devotes all his time and attention to his goal of becoming rich. He does not give time or attention to his loved ones (friends, relatives). But he made it in the end, he is now a multimillionaire (in worthless currency), but his family is gone, his children are full-grown, his family is old, most of them are dead and his real friends are gone. He himself is very old, so he doesn’t have much time and attention left and because of his choices, he doesn’t get time and attention back. No matter how rich he seems, people associate material objects with wealth, but in reality he is broke, bankrupt and penniless, because he has little time left in life and has to live it without the loving attention of his loved ones.

So be mindful of how you spend it.