Is it really all about money, Honey!

The recent Madoff episode and the numerous people, mostly retired, who are facing the specter of loosing their entire life savings – what a situation to be in!
This is not the only stand alone issue.
Several thousand (perhaps millions worldwide) people have got hurt and lost a lot right from the fall of the Lehman Brothers.

All this has got me thinking about my Dad too - a typical army officer, life for him has always been about rules, respect, valor and sacrifice.
He has never been a savvy investor. Many a times during my growing up years, I have seen my father sitting in his study in the gathering twilight, pen in hand and furiously calculating!
And sometime the mood at home would be glum due to one of his miscalculations or wrong judgment on some investment. I remember one particular one called ‘Kuber’ where he along with a lot of his fellow retired officer friends lost their pension money.

I remember the worry on his face. I am sure it’s been agonizing for him and many like him to see their hard-earned money disappear just like that!
And thank heavens, after having burnt his fingers badly enough to stop making such investments!

Money, money, money…..that’s all the world has been talking since Lehman went bust last September, triggering a global financial crisis that is still being played out and the latest ugly turn that it has taken in the form of greedy AIG.

No one has been spared it seems. Even if you don’t have a Lehman-linked product that is now worth zero, your livelihood would have been hard hit by the general downturn.
Every day it’s about job losses, home mortgages, negative growth and a free fall of markets into a bottomless pit….gloom, doom and more gloom…!

We need money to survive – there is no question about that!
Just ask any these people affected.

BUT – the thing about money is that it brings out the worst in people.

How many people are crying foul about “mis-selling” were genuinely “mis-sold” and how many are riding the “we-were-wronged” bandwagon!
How many have the courage and honesty to admit that they had bought the products knowingly and that they simply made a bad investment!

Well, Tough luck!!

Money – especially the sudden presence or the sudden lack of it in one’s life – has the power to change the way a person behaves.
The effects could be positive – you becoming a kinder person, BUT it’s usually negative, I think.

Most striking aspect or evidence is that it breeds envy.

This green eyed monster can buy tangible and material things tied to desires – big house, flashy car, swanky watch, and dream holidays – et all.
And when we see another person having all this and more, we feel the other is one up on us! And then some people act in strange ways – some become sycophantic towards the wealthy, others hate the rich.

I have seen relations breakdown, siblings becoming enemies – all over a few dollars and cents.

But then just as money is the root of much evil, so too is the lack of it.
Poverty can drive desperate deeds.

But as I recently heard at a gathering of rich NRI friends - the only way not to think of money too much is when one has a great deal of it! (Has to come from a rich bored expat wife)

Sic!

I personally feel that money has limited ability to make you happy.
I remember reading in a recent Forbes issue (where it declared all the billionaires) – correlation between wealth and happiness is small, accounting for about 1 per cent of the happiness.
Same level of happiness is measured between the mega-rich on the Forbes list and Africa’s Masai herdsmen, who live in dung huts.

Though like everyone else, I too wish I had more money.
It’s sad and frightening to be in position of people who have lost all their savings perhaps in a quest for a better life.
For them now it’s a matter of life and death, literally.

But what I’ve also realized is that, should you be lucky not to be in financial straits but are doing just okay money-wise, then sit tight. Don’t let the pursuit of money rule your life.
I know it sounds a bit trite – but there are things that money cannot buy.

When I look back at the few happiest moments of my life, they most certainly have nothing to do with money or the possession of material things.
I think what brings deeper and more lasting happiness are the intangibles and not the diamonds, the designer clothes and other fancy trappings of daily living.
In my list, the top of the list is the fact that one is loved and cared for. No amount of money could buy that feeling. You cant even pay someone to feel this for you!
BUT if the person whom you want all this from gives you that, consider your life rich, very rich! :)

As Oscar Wild said “ordinary riches can be stolen from a man, real riches cannot. In the treasury house of your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you”

In these tough times, perhaps we ordinary souls can take some comfort from those words.