What happens when people don’t have enough money? Either we obsess about our lack use the energy of that obsession to get what we need to survive or we let that energy consume us in an anxious self-pity. Curiously, our attitudes concerning our lack of money can enslave us.
What happens when people have too much money? We find ways to spend it either indulging our fantasies or pathologies, or we use it to make more money. Both ways, the money becomes so important to us and our self-understanding that we find ourselves bound (in bondage) to the money – to what it represents for us. The only way I can think of to avoid this conundrum, if we have too much, is to invest it in other people – people who need money and who also are motivated to use it to better themselves and their world.
Fundamental and competing philosophies are at play about how we get along with others. One philosophy says that if each person would keep the area in front of his/her own house clean, then all the world would be clean. If every person would ensure that s/he made enough income and limited expenses so that no one would do without, then the world would be a much more secure and safe place.
It is for each person to decide how we will view our relationship with money. There is a great deal at stake and we must choose wisely.
I invite your comments and your questions.
–Jack Price
