Value of money

What does money mean for you? Is one of your goals to be rich? Maybe you are very saving? Or, on the contrary, you spend all you can and even more?

What is money?
In the olden days people used direct exchange of goods, for example, 10 kilos of salt for one sheep. Every item meant some kind of value. For exchange to occur, two persons needed to want to sell and buy the things of the same value.

Of course, the method wasn’t convenient. So, there came coins. Later they were changed by paper money, which hold the value of gold, which was secured in bank. Nowadays value of money depends on economical strength of country, human attitude and so on.

Well, money always means some kind of value. It can mean a pack of salt or sheep, or more subtle things, like gain, which was given to me by a man, who did something for me. I think my profit is 500$, so I pay him that sum of money. The whole world lives on the idea, that people creates value and gets reward in form of money. Later the reward is used to procure other kind of value, for example, food or journeys.

Is money worth to be sought?
Of course, not. Except cases when money is exactly what is needed. For example, a wish to have 10 000 $ in cash for a rainy day. Here money are good like the goal, because they hide seek of security, which means, that after some kind of accident a man could acquire some things. He currently doesn’t know the concrete purpose of money, that is why money is very good tool in this kind of situation. Money holds indeterminate value.

But to seek things, like to earn one million is disastrous. Firstly, money doesn’t inspire, doesn’t motivate, doesn’t  enchant, they are just simple paper. People are motivated by things, which can be bought for the money: houses, fancy cars, journeys and other pleasures. So, why to hide real goal in the shadow of money? It is easer to seek goal, when you exactly know, what you want and how happy you’ll be, when you’ll get it.

Secondly, money by themselves are nothing. And you can’t get the most precious things of life for them. Imagine, that you slaved ten years, saved every cent and finally you have your million. And what’s now? Probably you have some health problems, have small circle of friends and you hasn’t felt pleasure worth of 10 years of your life! I prefer to have only 10 000, but to do enjoyable work, be healthy, have great friends. To cut a long story, I would prefer wonderful live than suitcase filled with stupid papers.

Two true stories
I want to share with you two stories, which perfectly illustrate, what money is, what money can and what they don’t. I found these stories in a small ebook called „A Simple System to Achieve Your Goals” (www.yourfreebook.com).

What would you do, if you had a million..
One day, John decided that couch could help him to achieve his goals. So, he found a couch and there goes their talk:
C: What goal do you want to achieve most?
J: I want to be rich.
C: What do you mean by rich?
J: I want 1 000 000$ in my bank account.
C: And what would you do, if you had this amount of money?
J: Well.. um.. I would go fishing!
C: But you don’t need million dollars for that…

Well, it’s obvious that nowadays John often goes fishing and has started doing it, before earning a million. This story perfectly shows, that we want not money, but things we could buy for them.

To have a million, but actually to have nothing
This story is about a guy, which literally froze to death. This incident was announced in newspaper.

The police came to make sure that a man died not by crime, but on his own. They found something, what shocked them. No, he wasn’t killed, but really froze to death.

Neighbours told how poor the man was. He bought the cheapest food he could find, kept the lowest possible temperature. The temperature was so cold, that even if someone would wanted to come, he couldn’t. The man also was suspicious and paranoid.

While checking the apartment police noticed something odd about the mattress. After taking a better look, they discovered that it was filled with money. He had apparently saved every cent he earned.

The man froze to death while sleeping on over 1 000 000$ worth silver certificates.

As I said before, it’s better to have less money, but happy life.

August 5, 2009 · Povilas Panavas · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Personal Development

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