storefront that promises payday loans. In hours, he has a $500 loan, and gets his Corolla to a repair shop. Two weeks later, he gets his paycheck, but he can't quite pull the cash together to pay back the short-term loan. The debt turns into $644 in one day, and grows staggeringly over the course of the next few months. The payday loan company finally sues him, and he loses everything he has, including his job.
He concludes, Money is evil.
Two sisters convene at a lawyer's office to hear their mother's last will and testament for the first time. They learn that the elder sister has been left the majority of their mother's estate, and the younger sister has been left a smaller amount locked in a trust. Later, in the older sister's living room, the younger one angrily asks why she has been so poorly rewarded in the will. The older sister cautiously comments on the younger's problems with drugs and alcohol, as well as her absence at the hospital for the last few months. The younger sister flies into a rage, and so begins a fight so awful they cannot speak to one another. Even after they reconnect years later, the younger sister feels resentment. The older one forever feels guilt over keeping her full share, yet never offers her sister any financial assistance for fear of insulting her.
They conclude, Money is the great destroyer.
Every day for 23 years, a man starts his day at his local deli to get a coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and a lotto ticket. He doesn't have much, so he rarely splurges for a big ticket, but after spending thousands of dollars over the years on lotto tickets, he hits the jackpot. When given the choice of receiving the prize over 26 annual installments or in a lump sum, he goes for the lump sum. He wants to see $3 million in his bank account. Having been a kid who didn't know if there would be hot water when he turned on the shower, who was made fun of for wearing hand-me-down clothes two sizes too big, he decides to show everybody what he never had. He buys a house, a beautiful car, and a boat, and he meets his wife. He buys his parents a new house too. He lives from one extravagant vacation to the next. He donates money to neighborhood communities. In five years, his bank account is at zero. He sells the house, the car, the boat. His wife leaves, and eventually he goes back to work, and to a different deli.
The man concludes, Money can't buy happiness.
A single mother works two jobs to raise her kids. She can't remember the last time she wasn't working, cooking, or cleaning. Each month the bills pile higher, and each of those white envelopes with the glassine window she pulls out of her mailbox is another moment out of thousands when her heart sinks. There's no payoff. And as retirement looks more and more like a fairy tale her parents told her about, she cannot see an end to it all.
The mother concludes, Money is our prison.
A young man takes a job working for a company he doesn't like, selling a product he doesn't believe in, talking without joy or enthusiasm to potential customers. He suffers at work, fails to make income, and struggles to pay his bills. Over time, he loses his self respect, his family, and his health.
He concludes, Money makes us greedy.
A woman goes into business for herself. Not knowing her own hidden beliefs about money and success, she pours all her savings and all her loans into her business. As it fails, she borrows more, taps out her credit cards, and fights to survive. Without an awakening, she goes bankrupt.
She concludes, Money makes us poor.
But are these well-meaning souls concluding facts, or beliefs?
Far too many of us are believing what we think are truths, when in fact they are shared beliefs that don't hold up under deep thought.
Beliefs create our reality. They influence what we see. They filter out facts. And many of us end up thinking we need to struggle, starve, and wish for a better life.
Yet in these many moments so many of us share, we look upon the other side with envy. People who've found a way to unshackle themselves from the bonds of money. We think people who shun money are better than we could ever be. We feel shame that we cannot be so bold. There are those courageous souls who, in a moment of divine instruction, quit their jobs, sell their homes and all their belongings, and take off for a journey without knowing when or how they will return. Without the threat of money snapping at their heels.
We admire their courage.
We see the spiritually devout who embrace a life of poverty and give their souls to their God and the greater good. They spend their lives without a hint of luxury except for the greatest luxury of freedom and soulful purity. They are walking gifts of selflessness. They toil in war-torn countries, helping those in the most desperate and despicable conditions, unmoved by the threat of the warlord waiting around the corner for a new body to snatch.
We admire their purity.
We see the poets, the artists of legend, who romantically refuse money to instead wed their divine muse. They suffer poverty, the scant food or clothing, and the threat of eviction for the absolute thrill of following their passion. Their passion…what a delicious idea to devote oneself to such a worthy cause. Passion unbridled by what the rest of us suffer every day…want and need. These lofty spirits have no want or need. It's as though they drink the air, soaking in the sun, and find all the life-sustaining nourishment they need, like wild vines faithfully stretching up in reverence to the sky.
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