Is data like money?

Last week, someone said to me: "Data is like money."

The point was to explain why sharing data matters.

You don't earn money just to earn money — you want to spend it too.

Otherwise it just piles up, without meaning.

The same goes for data: you don't collect it simply to have it.

You share it, so something can actually happen with it.

The person next to me found it a mindblowingly interesting metaphor.

I felt something different.

Not that it was wrong.

On the contrary — it sounded logical, even refreshingly clear in the moment it was said. But somewhere in my body, something didn't sit right.

A small friction.

One I couldn't name straight away.

For the next few days, I kept thinking about it.

What bothered me, I only understood later.

The idea that "money is only useful if you spend it" is already a step beyond "earning money for the sake of earning money".

But shifting the ultimate goal from hoarding to spending — that still feels, to me, somehow... empty.

Spending on what, exactly?

What is that thing in your life where money flows in and something of real value comes back?

What do you actually want?

What direction are you giving your life — and how can money play a role in that?

For me personally, money represents the possibility to shape the life I want to live.

It gives me the ability to create safety for myself and my family.

To invest in my own growth — buying a book on something that's been occupying my mind, hiring a coach.

To create — a new brush, a new set of paints.

To contribute to something larger than myself — vegetables grown locally and organically by a farmer nearby, a cause that moves me.

It starts from something positive.

From an intention to live this life, at my level, as well as I possibly can.

Money, in that sense, is a means.

Not the end.

And then: data.

If I follow that same line of thinking, the question shifts.

There's no point collecting data just to have it.

But — in essence — there's also not enough point in collecting data simply to share it.

The real question is: what value can this data bring?

Which urgent, important questions could be answered faster when data is collected, managed and shared in the right way?

What do you want to achieve?

What direction are you giving to care, to wellbeing, to people's lives — and how can data play a role in that?

Maybe that's the better image.

Not data is like money.

But data is like energy — only meaningful once you know where you want it to flow.