fellow soldiers hard at war, you see a futility you've never acknowledged before.
We are not soldiers, you say to yourself. We are not soldiers.
You've lost yourself in your head before you realize you've reached the end of the ranks. Your guide has climbed up and out of the trench, and begun walking, without fear…
Why are we going towards the enemy lines?
Your pains and curiosities are replaced by dread and confusion. But you don't stop.
The fear rushes blood into your cheeks. You feel lightheaded. But you say nothing. You are petrified. But you keep walking.
Where is she taking you?
And then she stops. She points to a small hill to your right and gestures to it with an open hand.
You quietly climb the hill ahead of her. She walks beside you, comfortably walking at your strained pace. It feels kind and compassionate.
At the summit you turn around.
There it is. The battlefield. As you'd never imagined.
On the left, you see the sparkling light of muzzle flashes shrouded in fog, the guns of your fellow soldiers cracking with furious desperation.
On the right, you finally see beyond the fog.
There's nothing there.
No enemies, no gargantuan war machines, no frightful beasts.
Only a small forest of trees riddled with aimless bullets.
The involuntary gasp that escapes surprises you nearly as much as the site in front of you.
Every muscle in your body rattles with horror.
Your wide eyes pressed urgently against their sockets.
There is nothing there!
You grab her hand out of quick impulse and squeeze with ferocious confusion.
You mean to scream it out, but all that emerges is a strained whisper, “What have we been fighting for?”
She turns her head to you, with kindness in her eyes.
“For the love of money.”
SECTION ONE
WE
1
THE TRUTH
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
True or false:
Money is the root of all evil.
Money is the great destroyer.
Money can't buy happiness.
Money can't buy peace of mind.
Money corrupts absolutely.
Money hardens the heart.
Money is our madness.
Money is our prison.
Money controls us.
Money changes us.
Money makes us greedy.
Money makes us poor.
We are at war with money. We don't know when it started, or even why. But it feels right. It is the right war to wage, because we are more important than money. Our souls are in danger. Money should have no power over us. But it does. So we sing the battle cry.
We curse it. We curse it with pleasure, with anger, with spite, with venom.
Our souls rail against it as if it is all that's rotten with humanity.
We hate the wicked control it commands over us.
We resent its spiteful disregard for the stress it breeds.
We scorn the greed it births.
We brood over the sly way it eats away at our health, our longevity, and our happiness.
We spite it for making us helpless victims to its power.
We whine like spoiled children for its gift of misery.
We would burn it gleefully, bill by bill, if we didn't love it so much.
Yes, we are in love with money.
Whatever this fabricated war might be, it can't touch this insatiable desire to have it, hold it, covet it and cherish it.
We dream of bulging pockets and oversized paychecks.
We lust for this magical money freedom.
We revere it with blatant disregard for the consequences.
We're convinced we need it to buy our happiness.
We're jealous of those that have it.
We moan when we lose it.
We rejoice when we gain it.
We beg for it, plead for it, fight for it, cry for it.
We would violently curse a man who gleefully burned it, bill by bill.
What madness! What a twisted way to move through life!
If we had the same kind of relationship with our lovers, it would be dysfunctional and emotionally abusive. I love you, I need you, I want more of you. You disgust me, you poison me. You're mine, all mine. You love everybody else, but not me.
We are in a relationship with money whether we like it. It's not going away. It will not die. We live with money and money lives with us. Yet we fight, and fight, and fight. Struggle, struggle, and struggle.
This vicious cycle seems to be our fate.
And yet, as we fight, struggle, love, and hate, there is a small group of people who have it, hold it, and don't need it. People soaked in prosperity, having everything they could want. Everything, including mission and purpose. People who taste profound success while money is the least of their passions.
They neither love it, nor hate it.
They neither struggle with it, nor fight it.
They command it, yet respect it.
They don't fight for it, but they give with it.
And somehow they keep making money.
But this enlightened approach is far from the norm. And we have no help from the world around us to gain this enlightenment, much less even recognize the potential for enlightenment. Let us see how the mental poison keeps away the enlightenment.
A man drives down Route 180 in St. Louis, Missouri on his
