How important is money?
Keeping perspectives on wealth balanced.
How important is money? Extremely! Not at all! Somewhat! All of the above. Sometimes, having the right perspective on money is the key to getting a lot of it. And sometimes having a lot of it is the key to ruining your life.
"I've got plenty of nothing, and nothing's plenty for me. I've got no car, I've got no mule, I've got no misery. The folks with plenty of plenty, got a lock on the door. (They're) afraid somebody is going to rob them while they are out making more. What for?"
Those are the lyrics Ira Gershwin wrote in the classic Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess. Learn the song, sing a lot. There is a real truth in it. "I got no lock on my door, that's no way to be. They can still the road from my floor, that's okay by me, cause the things that I prize like the stars and the skies all are free!" Got that?
What is happiness?
Don't expect me to fully answer THAT question here. I will simply point the way. And it is: any time you define your happiness with a "when", that is not happiness. "I'll be happy when I make a lot of money and achieve great wealth," is simply wrong. Many people achieve lots of wealth and money, and are miserable. Many a lottery winner has gone into depression, or spent their way to self-destruction. Elvis Presley was a miserable wreck who needed intense amounts of drugs to get through his day.
The reason why a "when" definition of happiness is wrong is that it assumes that your happiness depends on external factors. In reality, happiness is a choice. An old pearl of wisdom says, "who is rich? He who is happy with what he has." Notice how this saying doesn't imply one shouldn't try to achieve more. What it is saying is that happiness should be even now, even before you have everything you need.
In other words, happiness is a choice. It is a choice, because we choose what to focus on in life. If we focus on money, we are focusing on something we don't control. If we focus on health and family, we are also focused on things we don't completely control. What do we control? Our sense of purpose in life. Our mission. When we feel that our life has meaning, we have opened the door to happiness. And every individual must know that their life has meaning.
How do you find the meaning of life?
A life-changing book to read is called "Man's Search for Meaning," by the great psychologist Victor Frankl. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who writes about the meaning of life as he saw it in the concentration camp. It is an amazing achievement to have an inner happiness in such horrible surroundings. And yet, people in the camps maintained optimism and hope when death was all around them. It was those who had a clear purpose, a reason to survive, who had that amazing life force that enabled them to survive starvation and violence.
Frankl formulates the question so many people ask in backwards order. People usually ask, "What is the meaning of life?" Frankl says that we shouldn't be asking the question. Rather, says Frankl, it is life that asks each and every one of us the question, "What is your meaning?" We each need to find our purpose, our mission. It may change from one stage of life to another, but it is our job to discover it. That is the key to happiness.
Where does money fit into all of this?
It fits in exactly the same way. If your purpose in life is to be a teacher, money is not very important to achieving that goal. Your skills and your time and your devotion are. If you are a person who wishes to abolish poverty in your town, money is critical to what you wish to do. If your purpose in life is to support your family, a moderate amount of money is needed.
Notice how in all of these cases, money is never the goal. It should never be the goal. Money cannot buy you happiness, only purpose and mission can. Money is the means by which you can achieve success in your purpose and mission. Never make the accumulation of money your goal. You could end up like Bernie Madoff. Well, not quite that extreme, but it's not good. Remember those lottery winners who achieved more money than most of us, and ended up far more miserable because of it.
How can you gain that proper perspective on money?
I believe that giving charity is a crucial element in this. My religious tradition teaches me that if I give charity, I have opened the door to wealth. It shows that I am a responsible steward of money, not a servant of it. By giving my 10%, I confirm that money is not a goal, but a means.
How tragic are the misers! How tragic those who have untold millions, and never have the joy of sharing it with those in need. How tragic those whose money corrupts their minds and souls, until they commit criminal acts to achieve more. Greed is one of the cardinal sins, as well as a disease of the soul.
Again, Ira Gershwin -- "I got plenty of nothing, and nothing 's plenty for me. I've got the sun, I've got the moon, I've got the deep blue Sea. The folks with plenty of plenty got to pray all the day. It seems with plenty, you sure have to worry how to keep the devil away!" The devil is the disease of obsession with getting more and more money. Money is not a grade on your success in life. It is insignificant. Good deeds and good character are what really count.
With that perspective, you can be a responsible steward of money, and you will achieve all that you need. Money can't buy you happiness. But happiness will get you the greatest wealth.