by Kristin Schaaf

Created on: January 02, 2010

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

This self-professed love is reflected in our culture. Money is the number one cause of divorce. Robbery is one of the most common crimes. People want to grow up to be rich, just like celebrities, so they can be happy and successful and have the money to do whatever they want.

Somehow, as a society, we have let the amount of money we have reflect our self worth and security. The more money we have, the more in control we feel and the more power we possess. And, we would do just about anything to attain more of it.

People fight and lie for more money, deceiving and taking advantage of others for their own profit. The love of money can destroy relationships. When we become greedy and start putting money before anyone or anything else, it can become dangerous.

So dangerous that it can lead our economy into a recession. We all saw it happen.

Big banks handed out bad loans that took advantage of hardworking people. These same banks spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying against regulatory financial reform that would protect all Americans from predatory practices. And, these banks were handing out millions of dollars in executive bonuses. Now these banks are back to raking in billions in profits. And taxpayers are still footing the bill and seeing none of the money.

 It is when we love money that it can create evil. We obviously need money in order to live, but it doesn’t have to become our obsession to have more.

Some of the happiest people I know do not have very much money. They count their blessings for what they do have. It’s funny, when I ask them how they are doing, they will tell me what they are thankful for and that they are blessed. They count the small things in life as what matters the most. They don’t spend their time looking for ways they can acquire more money in order to solve their problems.

We all know that money cannot solve all of our problems, but there is a part of us that feels that we would be a lot more secure if we just had more of it. I’ve noticed that the more money people have, the more they feel they need even more of it. I don’t see too many poor people buying lottery tickets. In fact, I would argue that just having enough money is all that we need – because it keeps us thankful for what we do have and counting our blessings.

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