Money and Your Life

I don’t understand most people when it comes to their relationship with money.  Perhaps it is because I have never had very much of it but it never really mattered to me.  But for many that I do know who have money, I can’t believe its importance in their lives.  And I see so many things that I can only hope would never be a part of my life if I had a fortune.

So many people think that because they have money, they have the right to control others.  They withhold money to force certain actions that they want to see in others.  They seem to think that it makes them more powerful than others and they use it to dictate the behavior of others.  Then, there are those with money who are afraid that they will lose it and so they hold on so tightly that they never allow themselves to enjoy the things that they could do to help others and to create happiness in their own lives.

Please don’t misunderstand.  I don’t believe that having lots of money is a bad thing and it doesn’t have to mean that people with money aren’t able to be happy and live a fantastic life.  Rather, I have watched others with wealth not only destroy other members of their family as well as their own lives.  That is the sadness that I am really so sorry to see.

I truly believe that money does not need to dictate the person that you are or the person that you are yet to become.  You don’t have to be rich in order to help someone you know who might not have enough money to buy some food to hold them over until the next pay day.  You don’t have to be rich in order to contribute money to a charity that is working to help those who are helping survivors of a disaster.  You don’t have to be rich in order to give a hand to an organization that is raising money to find a cure for a disease.  And you certainly don’t have to be rich to reach out to a person who has lost a family member or friend in order to give them love and comfort and support.

In these tough economic times, we don’t need money to make someone’s day a little brighter by sharing a kind word or deed.  We certainly don’t need money in order to allow someone to go ahead of us in a line or to reach out and sit with a child whose parents are busy working to make a living for their family.  Just by helping each other, we not only help someone else but it makes us feel so much better about ourselves and who we are as people and all the money in the world will never buy those feelings.

How do you feel about money and your life? COMMENTS