In this modern world, money is the be all and end all of everything. Is money really a panacea or the harbinger of all troubles? We call ourselves more cultured today. We call ourselves to be the highest form of evolution in the world. Yet, we have boundaries and classes of people based on money. Money was injected into society because of our cultural evolution. It was not present when we evolved from our primate forefathers.
Who gave man the authority to attribute value to things that nature creates?
Would life still have been the same if we did not have the concept of money and everything was free? Would there be a word called "free"?
Hasn't money created a rift in the world delineating people in various classes? Would we have had warring nations? Would we have had people becoming bad, corrupt just for money?
I can see a lot of places where money has only turned us into barbarians! Where people lose track of their morals, their principles, their ethics, even their love and concern for other members of the same tribe. After all, we are all but part of one major tribe, one major species – the homo sapiens, right?
Would we have had people making stuff that we don't need just to make more profit for the companies? No deception. Everything would have been done if and only if it would make life better for the tribe.
Having money has become necessary in this world today. To survive, you have to either search for kindness and charity or a source of money. Instead of making life easier, it has only made life tougher for a good majority of people. Families are not staying together as families. The parents are busy earning to save for their subsistence after a certain age.
Is this the way that world should be moving, when everyone is running behind money? Should we really let money rule us?
At the same time, if we decide that we will not run after money, are we losing out on something? We cannot cater to the luxuries of life!
I ask the question again, has money made life better or worse for humankind? Post your opinions!!
This post was inspired from two things, the current book that I am reading – The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris, and Ugly past; between truth and PR stunts… – the post at Chronicles of a Utopian Writer!
@gurupanguji • Ramblings of an Eccentric Soul 
Hmmm…
LikeLike
Hi Pangu,
Nice post which would make everyone to think deep….!
In my opinion, Money made man's life worse and miserable too!
============================================================================================================
Money made life better earlier as it was started from many eons ago in the form of gold coins, stones,etc for the sole purpose of exchanging valuable things and for Businness. As the time passed by selfishness and greediness encountered into mans life and made him thought without money he couldnt live his way. At the same time, money is required to satisfy ones unlimited desires…..! As there is no end for the desires of a person, one would run after money without maintaining any human values. At present Money made man to such an extent to follow the wrong tracks like stealing, cheating,etc. Ofcourse there might be many reasons for occurence these incidents, but Money is the main factor playing in ones life. It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to teach children the importance of money and tell their kids on how to spend amount as per their needs and with limited desires. Children learn most things from their parents,friends and their surroundings. If father earns much and allows his children to spend their own way without teaching how and where to spend and earn legally, when they grown up they will come to the understanding that Money is the sole thing which they have to acquire and may go into the wrong tracks. There is no fault in the father bringing up his child, becoz he was also brought up by his father in the same manner. In this way Money made life worse for the mankind. This means that there is a great blunder in the education system (I feel)in our society.
In my opinion, Education should make a person to live his life more happily without any falsehood and tensions. There were also cases where a child was educating well but was made miserable by his uneducated and illegal parents. At some places Schools became business centres and not educating the children! You might ask 'what about the children who cant afford for education?' To say, we are lack of Well educating schools. Even the people who can afford for their children education, there is no guarantee that when they become youth they understand Life and Money. Otherwise the mans life wont be miserable as of now. Well educating schools are those schools which teach the students the SCIENCE OF LIFE. Many of you might think that i am telling wrong. One who studies Life Science and implements in life, he/she in no way lead to miserable life. And their life will be Happy and Blissful.
You can think that I am deviated from the topic, but every problem facing by the society now is due to the lack of most fundamental science that is SCIENCE OF LIFE or SPIRITUAL SCIENCE. I quoted this to inform you all that 'Understanding Life and its purpose is more important than running after Money'. Present mankind thinks "Money is life". Their way of thinking has to be changed to "Money is only a part of Life". Love, Friendship, Health, Learning an Art and many more are far valuable than Money.
My message: One should earn and spend money as per their needs and for limited desires. (Unwanted desires are the root causes for Sorrows and Griefs in one's life). Help and serve the poor and charities by donating some percentage of your earning (around 10% is an optimal one)! One who understood and implemented the SCIENCE OF LIFE, that is a True Educated Man, has to spread the knowledge of Life sciences to his family members, relatives, friends and to the society. If every individual on Earth makes this as practice I am sure that we will lead to War-free and friendly nations all around the GLOBE.
Please feel free to mail me for any of your feedback, suggestions and queries on Life Sciences!
Have a Wonderful Life!
Thanks and Regards,
Deepu
LikeLike
Hi deepu!!
That was quite an interesting observation you have made. Failure of the education system could be where we sorta lost track of our aim/objective in life.
Man’s purpose of existence, in the spiritual world is defined by this! However, today in a highly materialistic world, a highly shall we say objective world, spiritualism is losing its hold on us.
I agree and will be one of the first people to admit that spiritualism is fading away from my life. As I strive on to bigger and deeper understanding of my own life, somewhere down the lane, spiritualism just paved way to something else.
Another argument that I can see being posted for your statement is that “spiritualism is not gonna feed me or my family”. How would you react to such a case?
One more word of advice, please DO NOT post your e-mail id, as spammer’s will just peruse through the web-page and note down all e-mail addresses. So, I am notifying you, for your own protection, I am removing your e-mail address from the post.
If you aren’t worried about it, please lemme know and I will put it back in!
Danke again for your views on the same :-)!
LikeLike
Hi Pangu!
Agree! Agree! Both from yours and deepu’s post. Money is not everything, neither it is panacea, nor an ultimate euphoria. But, We can’t deny the fact that it is a gr8 comfort, a gr8 ease and definately, it has made our life more easy-n-better!
See, Personally i believe that human is more an indiviual being rather a social animal. Think abt a person’s life in earlier days[ b4 money was invented], his struggle, his living pattern and compare it with yours life now. Obviously, problem are there, but it comes with anything gr8. And, think abt the problems that we have now, they are more social, not directly related to money. Money is like blood which is a necessary means to run society or in turn say US. But, i agree that it was never a heart, so how can it be the heart of problems? If you think abt indivisual’s problem, [ Mostly they are just mental],they are well depicted by deepu, and for that we need to understand life, ought be more spritual and yeah, also ought UNDERSTAND MONEY so that we can get rid of our unlimited desire!
Now, we know that we can’t live without blood, so there is no going back. Better, we accept it and, find out how can one be happy and blissed living with it. Money is the basic need [or else, ya can get these need fullfilled and more with money], and I believe that basic need is essential for living life, but it can’t make our life happier or more blissful. For that, one ought to look for the things having gr8r values than money like love, spitit, friends, family and yeah one’s oneself!
LikeLike
Well Amresh, an interesting perspective from the other side :-D!
Good, was waiting for someone to present the other side of it all as well.. However the whole premise was that we are giving value to something only because money has bought it, or allowed us to buy it? Isn’t that a highly narrow point of view? IOW, would we have given the same value to the things we are giving value today, if money wasn’t a factor?
Comon Baba, you can’t be serious here. The definitive trait of the human is that he’s a social animal. No matter how varied an individual you might be, you are highly dependent on a number of people for your daily subsistence, whether it be financially, morally, emotionally!
I think you are referring to the technological advancements Baba! There was no struggle, before money was invented. The concept of money/rather if we take it before “money was invented”, assets, yielded a sense of power/status to the owner. This caused classification, based on assets, yielding poor at one end of the spectrum and the rich at the other end.
Think about it, if there weren’t any such classification, wouldn’t life have been better? I don’t want to sound like a Marxist here :-D!!
It would be nice, if you’d elaborate!!
It’s not necessarily a mental problem! Unlimited desire is not the problem. It’s the value associated, which is the problem!
My question exactly? Why are we basing our life to acquire something that is so necessary, yet does NOT provide any sort of comfort! Is it even worth making it a thing to life for, a thing to die for, a thing to commit a sin for?
LikeLike
hmmm..I think it’s all perspective.
“Money is the root of all evil” they say. True in most cases. People do crave money..Man has always been materialistic.
However,I don’t think a majority of people run after money. Atleast, that’s what I’d like to believe. (sadly not true my heart says) And if it were that way, the world would be a better place.
LikeLike
Why is it that man has been so materialistic is the whole question!!
That’s the cultural evolution, rather explosion that man has undergone! He suddenly has attributed importance to something that’s absolutely modern by any standards and now he lives for that!!
I agree, perspective, but is it right to alienate other facets of humanity when it comes to money is the question here
LikeLike
Hey,
Sorry pals,I was busy the past few days….
Dear Pangu, thanks for removing my mail id and i didnt mind anything regarding this.
We have been misunderstanding the word spiritualism. If one is truly leading a spiritual life then there wont be any situation for starvation of food and other things.
Soon I will be commenting again and make you clear the questions raised in the next comments!
Catch you soon! bye
LikeLike
has money made life better or worse?? hmm…tough because you see along with the money our desires have also evolved so to speak.
imagine this scenario for an instant:
the cave man. unintelligent and barbaric. consumed only by basic instincts. hunt, eat, live, defend.
if the same analogy is applied to modern day life, i’m guessing we’re no differnt. money is just another variable along with the thousands of other variables.
delusions. every single one of them. but fact is, right now i’d do anything for money.
besides there is this question a jouranalist asked Rockefeller (at the time, the first american billionaire).
“How much money is enough?”
to which he replied, “a little more.”
sorry…i ramble too much.
LikeLike
Haha! Money has become all too important for everyone “On the verge” ;-)! Anyhoo, when I ponder on life, say another century or two down the lane, would man have developed enough to live without fighting to attain economical nirvana?
Aaah.. stuff, to ponder about *wink* :-D!
Yeah, I liked the way you thought about how man has evolved with his needs along with money. Although I hate the adage, it still makes me say “The greediest of ’em all” :-D!!
Wow!! That was nice!!
LikeLike