"Your money or your life," so goes the setup line to the old joke. "I am thinking about it," comes the comic reply. And what a choice it is. Prosperity is the direct result of the ability to make money. American society is the wealthiest in world history. Even the poorest have hope. Each can decide for themselves what is most important. Everyone is thinking about it.

One has only to list some of the competing values so see what is lost when prosperity becomes primary. Faith, family, meaningful work, contentment, all war against each other in a struggle for one's energy, strength, and intellect. No matter what choices are made, a certain amount of money, a certain level of prosperity is necessary to live the choices.

Prosperity hovers over everything in a way that makes it difficult to tell when prosperity, as a value, has superseded the others. That difficulty itself is at least part of the answer to the question of how prosperity overshadows our beliefs and values.

With the excesses exposed in various corporate scandals, corruption in politics, cheating in sports, perhaps it should not be so difficult to see where our hearts lie. We are not so much thinking about it after all. Our decision has been made. Life itself has already been traded for prosperity. Money is our god.

Learn more about this author, Mark Allison.
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