The Yiddish proverb which states that “with money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too”, has always been my point of reference whenever l have found myself in the position of trying to explain the true effect of money on us all.
This time around-in fact, as always though- l am in the hot seat to explain “our understanding of money” because of an email l received from an ardent reader of this column.
The writer sought to find out why “so many people lose their morals or give up their long held values whenever they are exposed to money” and more so as “it appears that the language of money is well understood and ‘spoken’ well by many but its true meaning is never known”, and could it be that “it is just a waste of time for humans to be dwelling so much on this thing called money?”.
Concluding his point of view, the writer wanted to have another opinion on “whether the world would have been the same if there were no notes and coins to create debt, evil and despair in the human race”.
Simply, l appreciate the concerns raised by the writer. Doesn’t it surprise you also when you find people ready to maim, destroy and kill simply because they need some money to survive?
Don’t you get troubled when you read about a young man prepared to make a long and arduous trip in a canoe across oceans just to reach another continent, with the hope of finding some money to make ends meet?
Anyway, don’t be too surprised or perplexed about some of these issues because there isn’t much we can do about “money” at this point in time because it has come to stay - and never did it also start with our generation for us to fully understand the true meaning of it.
An attempt to interpret the Yiddish proverb to try to understand the true meaning of money would imply something like this: People would strive to have money so that they could become the main theme of the composer’s song, and in fact, because they would still be seen as the one’s with the “best voice” because of their money, they would conduct the choir too!
Okay. This is what my computer dictionary tells me about money: “Any medium of exchange that is widely accepted in payment for goods and services in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative economic worth of different goods and services”.
Cool, isn’t it? Well, it would be more fun if you understood also that as a medium of exchange money could be anything a group of people decide to call money.
Exchanging something means that at least it has to involve two people, and they must agree also that they would love the “value placed on that exchange”. That created the value of money which today has unleashed so much pressures for money.
The real estate moguls know the “store of value” in the properties they buy and sell, likewise the publisher, who is also fully aware of how the copyrighted material owned could impact on his or her bank account. In effect, money is the cycle that makes the world go round every day.
But the love for money, as Saint Paul once told Timothy, could be the root of all evil. In fact, if that was not partly true-at least- then how come that even family-owned businesses run into difficulties due to fights over ownership and therefore money? Or is it because the true meaning of money is never understood?
For the love of money -too much of it at all cost - and the desire to be the one talked about because of the power money brings, have led to problems where least trouble was expected.
Let us consider, again, some old stories that have relevance today. Guccio Gucci founded Gucci in 1906. We all love the designer Gucci for the meticulous and classy way by which its products are crafted, but perhaps not aware that the company in 1993 passed to an investment corporation owned by wealthy Arab investors after ferocious fights between family members.
Members of the family just couldn’t agree, and the ensuing fight could only be settled if it left the family completely- perhaps. The love for money in a different way, rooting up all evils!
And what about the story of how Herbert Haft, a self-made millionaire, split his family into bitter factions because he had decided to fire his son Robert, whom he had worked with happily for 16 years and replaced him with another son, Ronald?
After all, in the examples above, the money was “ultimately” going to stay in the family so why the fuss over some fine details of “ownership” and position in the family-owned business? It is all because it is not always as simple as that.
There is ownership, and in fact true ownership! The one who has the cash in the account will be seen as the one with the money and not the pretending “heir apparent”, therefore the interest will always be, “to fight for the right to the cash”.
Well, if this is not an example of the dangers of the love for money, then what else will qualify for Paul’s assertion that the love for money is the root of all evil?
The truth is, whereas the language of money is well understood by many, one’s understanding of its true meaning is mostly influenced by his or her own meaning structure of what it is, often based on the private logic in that interpretation.
Source...Graphic.com.gh
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