Money in itself is a very neat and clean thing. Because most of the time, we begin our search for money for truly genuine reasons. We want to take care of our kids, pay fees, and buy our necessities. Just about everything we need to do in life comes at a cost, and for us to be able to afford it, we need money. So yeah, money is a very good thing. The journey, though, that’s what differentiates good money from bad money.
You see, I hear people saying blood money and dirty money. The truth is, the market doesn’t really care where and how you got the money. If you sell a product, it won’t matter to you how your clients get their money, provided they pay you what is due. You won’t even know the lengths they had to go to get that money.
And that’s why I say this: money in itself isn’t clean or dirty, it’s the mode of acquisition that is. Many people sell drugs and use this money to live a lavish lifestyle. That money gets thrown back into the market every time they spend it. From transport workers to doctors, schools, pizza delivery boys, none of these people will know that the money is drug money, because for them, they did an honest job and got an honest pay.
When this criminal enterprise gets caught by the police, all their assets are seized, including the money they made. Do you think they’re all destroyed and burnt to ashes? No! This is because they funnel it back into the nation’s treasury, and it becomes funding for projects, payment for salaries, or some other thing. One way or another, the money returns into the market.
So, with that said, when does it end? Society has tried to condition us to live a certain way, one where we’re only making just enough money to get by. We make enough money to eat and shelter ourselves, we have enough to take care of our families, and if we’re lucky, we get a few assets down. But after that, we find ourselves stuck in this routine, doing the same thing over and over. We do more work hoping to make more money, but the price of things goes up, making the more work we do pointless. But we can’t stop doing more work, because things are still expensive. So even if we’re making more, the value of what we made has not changed at all.
And for me, this rat race is the same thing for citizens and criminals. People will work their asses off trying to build a good life. They’ll miss out on family moments and other important things, just to make money. And these are moments that can’t be gotten back, just because they need to make more money. You also see billionaires, people who already have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, but they still work their employees to the bone, they still fleece their customers, taking more money from them while delivering the bare minimum. We see politicians and government officials keep piling more and more money for themselves, embezzling to the tune of billions and trillions. Money that will outlive them all.
And just like that, we’re all in a rat race. Albeit different kinds of races. The truth is, the game can be addictive. We can get so used to it that even when we can stop, we choose not to. And we want to keep doing it. That’s why some people retire and then start looking for more work almost immediately, because they can’t stop this hunt for more money.
Finding money is important, but we shouldn’t lose sight of our values while we’re doing it. Criminals and thieves are not the only ones who lose their souls when they’re searching for wealth. People get so focused on getting more money that they lose sight of other things that matter. Like the ability to just relax, knowing that everything is fine. Or the gift of satisfaction, knowing that you’ve done enough and you have enough.
Money doesn’t really care about the effect it has on you, so it’s up to you to make sure that you protect yourself from losing your soul to it. And don’t do anything for money that you wouldn’t be able to defend in public.
Just my two cents!
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