Everyone knows the saying; ‘money is the root of all evil’. I believe that is only part of the truth. The whole truth is; ‘LACK of money is the root of all evil.’
If you examine all the things that make you, or anyone unhappy, how much of that could change if you had unlimited funds. True, you may still have your physical limitations, but you will also have the opportunity to try anything and visit the best doctors in the world, and maybe find a cure.
I examine everything that makes a person unhappy and have found, with the rare exception of an incurable disease, that it is all about lack of money. How many fights are founded on money, or not having enough or feeling like you do not have enough and just wanting more.
Even a terminal illness can be changed with money. Take Steve Jobs for example, the founder of Apple computers. Anyone else with his pancreatic cancer would have died over a decade before he did, and they would have been in so much pain they could not do the most menial tasks. He lived at least a decade longer and built the most valuable company in the world, all because he had unlimited money to get the best care he could.
If we blame or attribute our unhappiness to anything other than the truth, we will feel helpless and stuck and thus suffer more.
However, if we examine objectively and honestly what causes our frustration, anger, conflicts, pain, suffering, and what could change it so that we would not be in that situation, we would find money is ultimately the answer.
Money cannot buy love, but it will put you in a better mood, allow you to have the things to feel better about yourself, travel, join clubs and do other things to get you ‘out there’. Money may not buy love, but if you are depressed and stuck at home because you cannot afford to do things, it can change your feelings and circumstances such that you have a real chance to find love.
Certainly, some people just love to be miserable, and others could be given a great fortune and still be miserable but, at least we can see a cure for the majority of our misery, and if it does not cure it, we can afford to get some respite for a period of time. Given enough of a break from our pain, it is probable that our overall mood can be transformed.
If we do not suffer, we will not make everyone around us suffer either.
Who wants to fall in love with a miserable person?
Take a happy marriage, and add to that a financial disaster. What happens most of the time? Fights, disagreements, and eventually divorce. Of course there are those who stick together through difficult times, but those are exceptions. It is not hard to find infinite examples of people who had a great relationship until money troubles came up.
How many parents treat their children badly because they are stressed about earning enough money to support their family. What happens when a family man loses his job? How do many women react when their husband loses his job? Be honest about humans, not your imagination of yourself, even if you may be an exception. As well, consider the times of the world, how people are different in today’s world than they were 50 years ago as well as in different cultures.
If we know the truth behind our pain, then we can easily conquer it because we can work directly on fixing the cause of the problem rather than doing things to distract us from the pain when those distractions usually just make the cause of the problem worse.
Suffering is alleviated when we know the real cause. If we reduce the pain enough, we can get to work to fix the problem, which means regain our motivation and spark for life because hope returns when truth is found.
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Hi David,
No, I will disagree with you on this topic.
I will give you an example from my recent travels in SA. I returned a few days ago from Bolivia where coca production is now legal. I saw coca leaves everywhere in markets in big sacks sold very cheap. Several times I saw people drying the leaves in their front yards from the bus window.
Arriving in the city of Santa Cruz, I noticed evidence of personal wealth with many new expensive cars and boutique shops selling expensive luxury goods. But on the reverse side I noticed more rampant povery amoung the poor with many old, crippled and mothers with skinny dirty children begging on the street. But the most alarming observation was how unfriendly the people were with me and to each other. I have seldom seen taxi drivers in Latin America yelling obscenities at other drivers as I did in Santa Cruz. In addition, I was cheated many times buying things or paying for a taxi, even getting passed counterfeit money as change from a payment. Sometimes they would just walk away and not give me my change. I have never seen this kind of bad and unfriendly behavior and people who did not have the happy, laughing and joking behavior among other Latinos I have experienced in other Latin American countries. Obviously there was considerably more money in this city than typical SA cities I have visited yet I found their happiness was exactly inverse as compared to other locations where there are few luxury goods and access to large amounts of money. The affluent people I met and saw certainly did not display any happiness on their faces.
The happiest people I have experienced in Latin America are the campesino people selling and buying in the simple cheap central markets. They are poor by our standards but have a contentment for life and their families I do not see in the more affluent classes who appear to be worrying about having more money and protecting their assets. The campesinos in the markets laugh and have time for friendly talk. They are actually very rich in my opinion based on my past few years of observations. Also they are free from want something to make them happy. They are happy in the present circumstances I have also observed the younger generation of campesinos being taught that they are poor and their traditional lives are lacking. They are being taught to want and I now see many of these younger educated campesinos alienated from their traditional ways of simple enjoyment of life of enough just having their families, friends, simple foods and house. They now want more.
No, I would say that it is the want of money that is the root of all evil because it makes happy content people ungrateful for the simple blessings they enjoy today and have enjoyed for centuries.
Pura Vida,
Theron
It is the lack, thus the wanting of more, that is the cause of pain.
But in addition I must add that I am not writing for them, I write for westerners.
Your examples are not relevant to my articles because you are referencing a totally different culture than I am writing for.
This is a common distraction that people use, as a buffer, to avoid looking at themselves in relation to the lessons I am giving.
I gave a talk last week about eliminating anger, and one woman said it was not valid because babies and dogs get angry naturally. But I was talking to adults. so her example was purely a distraction from looking at herself.
Basically, for any average western person, if you list all the problems or things that give you misery or worry or negative feelings, make that list and I am sure that 99% of those things can ultimately be solved with money.
Would you travel more? would you take more courses? would you give money to help some poor people in need of food? what more would you do with your life if you had more money?
But of course, you can disagree
David
Ok, I will give you a couple examples I have observed in the North American affluent culture as the US gov just keeps on printing money to solve the “lack” of money problem.
A townhouse neighbor I had for 4 years in Seattle slept on her sofa on the first floor because the two upstairs bedrooms were piled to the ceiling with unopened stuff she had bought. Fedex made deliveries to her house almost every day. By all appearances she was not happy, I never saw anyone visit her. More money certainly would not solve her problems.
Sometimes I would go to Walmart late in the evening to pick up an item I required . Many times I saw obese women in electric carts hanging over the sides driving up and down the isle just buying and looking. They were not there to buy some needed items but just to BUY. No, I feel our culture is so infected with getting our wants and needs mixed up that we cannot even see the unhappiness that wanting more causes in terms of we will be happy if we had more money and have a better life..
Another example. I appraised houses for banks for several years in Seattle. During the last few years before the mortgage banking fiasco real estate agents would put many people into houses they couldnt afford with the criminal scams of flexible mortgage programs. The agents would tell the pre qualified buyers of a $250K house they can buy a $400K house with the same monthly payment and then refiance in 2 to 4 years to cover the cost of the new adjustable rate mortgage. Now there are whole subdivisions of these $350k to $450k sitting vacant or under foreclosure. I saw many bank documents showing couples paying over half their income for mortgages both working sometimes 12 hours a day or more. Some of these houses barely looked lived in as the “owners” were away most of the time.
No, David, the wanting of more money (consumerism) is the current cause of maybe all our world problems. People need to become more humble and be grateful for the food they eat, a warm roof over their heads and their children and family. The Latino cultures here in SA could teach the North Americans and Europeans a lot about the real values of life which provide contentment and happiness with what you have.
OK, so I have not made it clear.
yes, I agree money started the problems.
but what i was trying to convey with my article is that like it or not, westerners live in a money ruled world.
everything requires money, that is a fact.
and facing this fact, if we do not have money we suffer.
I think that your views are skewed by your dislike of money, and so since you do not have money, and you have seen the problems that come with money, your view is money is bad as it causes problems by creating desires.
That is true, but it does not change that for the average person their life would be so much better, better food, better health care, better home, and also you will find that poor people tend to get big bills for things like car repairs since they cannot afford a good car, and these things always set them back further.
If we look objectively, rather than from your point of view which clearly does not like money at all, then you would see yourself differently.
You may not personally like money because you do not have a lot of it. My point is that if you did not dislike money, and accepted the world in which we live as westerners, then you would have more and the more you have, the more you can do for yourself and others.
Your last line exposes my point about how we have our fixed opinions and that causes us limitations or troubles that prevent moving forward: “I certainly enjoy living among the Latinos even though my thinking of the way it should be sometimes causes frustration.”
This is exactly what one of our students said about India. He gets so upset because the taxi drivers do not understand him and do not know where to go, then try to cheat him.
If you did not have your opinion of what a taxi driver should do or be like, but rather accepted that they do not have much money at all and will try to get what they can from the comparatively Billionaire tourist, then from their point of view, you would see they are just doing what their world makes them do. So it is time to live in their world, not yours.
But the frustration comes because you live in your world and take it with you, with your opinions.
By the same token, you have opinions of money, and I am trying to break all opinions so that we can get out of our shell and start to fly with the eagles!
For westerners (me included), we are taught that the aim is to reach and grasp for as much money as we can.
This is just a part of the habit forming created in us at school and by plural ignorance/group psychology.
Greed for more money is merely an indicator of how manipulated you have been, to join in the reach for the top of the pyramid, which you will NEVER do.
Money is ego stuff, just like fame is. The more you get, the more bloated your ego will become. The more psychologically bloated the own “acting” character becomes, the further it will fall in the end.
In principle, you are currently the character your brain creates. But your mind is you, not the contents.
You have determined that the commonly accepted result of money is the only way it can be. I disagree. We can have lots of money and success and remain humble and use it wisely. Granted there may not be many public figures to show this, but it is possible.
If one cultivates their character first before the money comes, then it can be that way. On the other hand, I have met the Cadbury family, yes the chocolate, and also one of the Rockefellers. These are both super wealthy but older families and they are the most humble gentle people who you would never recognize if you met on the street in their normal attire.
The problem is not money, the problem is the culture and materialistic views of the individual. It is important to get that straight, where the real problem is. Then maybe more people can be lucky enough to find a balanced path.
In my methods of helping people make money, we go through months or years of personal development before we begin the path to making money, so they are prepared for wealth, and this is something not many people have the patience to do.
To someone who can see through their own greed as harmful to itself and everything else, the want for more money is a disease.
There should be a global mind-set for ‘just enough’.
I quit a 32,000 a year job to take one paying 11,000 a year. I stopped buying gadgets, following trends and eating junk food. I don’t need a car now because I work close to home.
Money isn’t the problem. It is what wants the money that is broken.
But if one would see that, they would not want more money in that way.
It is not possible to have a global mind-set for anything with humans, too much individuality.
That made you happy, but for others it will not.
I wrote a poem about True Love, and one line says; “True love is wanting all the money in the world so you have that much more to give.”
That is my view, and based on my observation of myself i see it is true for me. But I know it is not for everyone.
Having said all this about money, what matters most is happiness. And one thing I believe is that if we look at and criticize other people for anything at all we will not be happy.
and yes, that is the point, your last line, Lack of money is the root, and that is because we want more for whatever reason.
Sometimes if someone is dying and all it takes is more money to help them get the treatment they need to live and be healthy, I am sure, God forbid you should be in that position, you will regret not having more money in the bank. This is reality. But everyone is in their own life. I write to say what I think and how I found certain ways of having a better quality of life, and if anyone wants to find a peaceful life, it requires thinking and being ready for reality to take a bad turn, unless you are blessed that nothing can ever go wrong 🙂
Spot on. Idealists don’t get. I’m a musician. An artist. All of the above applies. This is truth. And I have written Something like this myself. 100% truth. Sorry folks who disagree. Gotta walk in those moccasins to find another man’s truth. Great piece.