Surviving Money-Mindedness

Mark Twain is purported to have mused, “The lack of money is the root of all evil.” He was referring of course to the scriptural lamentation of Timothy, one of the Twelve Disciples who wrote that “The love of money is the root of all known evils . . .”

Now I am not about to turn all preachy and religious here. I’m no Sunday minister. It is plain to see that it isn’t the money but the love of the stuff that is the problem. But how can love ever be considered a problem? Isn’t all love wonderful and desirable?

Money, labor, and wealth are profoundly fundamental to our spirituality, our human connection with God and His universe. How we relate to work and money impacts on our emotional and physical well-being as well as relationships with others, just as intensely as do food and sex.

Even right now, if you’re honest, you can probably notice at least a tinge of emotion arising inside just from reading about it. And we’re barely touching the subject. See? That’s anxiety.

Toil, recompense, financial matters of all kinds, upset everyone—rich, poor and in-between, even those who swear it isn’t so. And it’s not by reason of socialization or culture. The natural concern for money is a spiritually inbred facet of our humanity. Just as each of us is born personally invested in procreation and survival, so are we viscerally attached to money. Not currency. Not cash. Not Bitcoins. But money—yes, tender, as well as the wealth we accumulate and exchange for the things that bring us pleasure, security, and approval.

There are supernatural reasons for this. It is right.

As in all things, handle money well and be well. Handle it improperly and you’ll not survive either affluence or poverty, whichever your station in life may be.

People who say, “Money isn’t everything,” are consoling themselves for the umbrage they feel by not having any. Those unabashedly admitting, “It’s all about the money,” are defending an obsession with pleasure seeking.

The truly contented person understands the enormous spiritual sway of wealth, financial security, investment, and work. They respect it. They are neither dismissive or obsessed with finance. A healthy regard for prosperity is automatic once we understand and live this way. Then we can begin living free of any need for release from the anxiety that everyone still bound to Self experiences. It requires a deflation of Ego many of us have yet to know.

Love, an absence of hate, is reserved for the Creator alone – and then His love is returned back to us for distribution among our fellows.

It isn’t the love of money that does us in. It is only when love is perverted and prescribed toward money and the things that money buys.

Twain was right. Timothy was right.

There is nothing wrong with money but there is something very wrong with any human being who uses or depends on it to create a sense of personal worth.