When I hear people saying money isn_t important, the person making the statement usually has little money, and is not competitive in the process of making money. They either have become comfortable with a set of values that de-emphasizes money, or they use this rationale to quell their discomfort about not having money.
The mere presence of money brings no guarantees that happiness will be there too. However as a lubricant to the happiness process, it really helps. Look at these examples:
• If you are considered unattractive, you can turn to plastic surgery, beautiful clothes, skin treatments, body building, etc. To make a real difference in how you feel about yourself.
• If you are falsely accused of something, and run the risk of going to jail, the ability to hire the best of legal talent makes a massive difference. Many innocent people are spending time behind bars (which is a very unhappy experience) while those who could afford good legal assistance are a lot happier because they never go to jail. (Patty Hearst participated in bank robberies and never received much in the way of punishment).
• If your best friend is getting married in a distant city, you go to the wedding and participate in the happy event. Without money you send a card.
Figure out what makes you happy and keep moving in that direction. If a lot of money isn_t needed, don_t spend too many anxious moments worrying about getting money. The money alone will not make you happy.
The Meaning of Money
1. So you think that money is the root of all evil?“ said Francisco d_Anconia. „Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can_t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
2. „When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
3. „Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you_ll learn that man_s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
4. „But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man_s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can_t consume more than he has produced.
5. e by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men_s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man_s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?