I work with economics.\u00a0 Macroeconomics.\u00a0 Everyday. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And with macroeconomics follows the concept of ridiculously big sums of money — like gross domestic product, trade numbers, national budgets, etc.\u00a0 We don't flinch for anything less than a hundred million dollars.\u00a0 After all, it's macroeconomics.\u00a0 Macro.\u00a0 Big picture.\u00a0 We look closely at equity markets and capital markets and monitor massive cash movements between countries that may move the foreign exchange market — which eventually affects currency.\u00a0 Big numbers.\u00a0 Very big numbers that even I couldn't physically fathom.\u00a0 All these are mere figures that I see on the screen of a Bloomberg terminal.\u00a0 If I have to visualize, however, how many stacks of hundreds I'd have to have in order to amass these amounts… then I would have to admit that I'd be stunted.<\/p>\n
Money.\u00a0 That one thing that makes the world move.\u00a0 If not for money, then I wouldn't have a job.\u00a0 Neither will millions of people out there — some of whom hold the most powerful jobs in the world.\u00a0 The world's various nations would be trading herds of cattle and sacks of rice instead.\u00a0 How exactly do you measure the inflation of sheep?\u00a0 Do you judge a country's wealth by how many chickens there are in the people's backyard?<\/p>\n
If it weren't for present-day currency, however, people would have found another way to measure one's success or achievements.\u00a0 It is only human nature to aspire for material wealth as part of survival.\u00a0 Though money is not the root of evil, it can be an instrument of it.\u00a0 People react to money differently.\u00a0 And also, many people change because of it.<\/p>\n
Here's a borderline-idiotic question:\u00a0 Why is money so important?\u00a0 However, here's a spin-off from that question:\u00a0 What is it about money that changes us?<\/p>\n
Money changes people – either for the better or the worse. <\/p>\n
We all work to rake in enough dough to survive.\u00a0 Yay or nay?\u00a0 Getting in a decent sum in our bank accounts grants us the basic requirements to live and perhaps allows us the luxury to enjoy the finer things in life.\u00a0 We progress and we move forward.\u00a0 That's what success and achievements are about.\u00a0 However, moving forward does not mean we have to forget where we came from.\u00a0 We do not let such a physical concept like money get in our heads and allow it to rule us over.<\/p>\n
I have met people who did one-eighty-degree turns because of money.\u00a0 Friends, even.\u00a0 I have noticed some morph into some sort of being that I could no longer recognize.\u00a0 And all because of money.\u00a0 It doesn't make me upset, though.\u00a0 It makes me sad.\u00a0 It makes me sad that I had lost some friends to dead national icons whose faces are imprinted on a piece of paper.<\/p>\n
I laud these kinds of people for working hard for money.\u00a0 From humble beginnings to exuberant standings — and admittedly, I have once thought that they deserve nothing less.\u00a0 However, witnessing Kafka-like metamorphoses makes me think otherwise.\u00a0 The notion of having fat wads of bills in one's pocket gives people confidence – enough of it that eventually turns into arrogance and deceit.\u00a0 Into extreme materialism, into shallowness, into tastelessness (ironic enough), and pettiness.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 What is it about money that makes people so powerless against it?<\/p>\n
As P.T. Barnum once put it: “Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.”<\/p>\n
Do you ever question why no matter how much we pray to get rich, we never get it?\u00a0 No matter how hard we work, no matter how much dexterity there is in our souls, we don't quite get what we want?\u00a0 However, we will always have just enough.\u00a0 God perhaps wants to control these metamorphoses in the world.\u00a0 Maybe the Creator knows too well what will happen if everyone had money.\u00a0 We become aware of crimes and atrocities that take place because of money presently.\u00a0 We never know — maybe that's a small price to pay for having only a handful of people in this world to have money.<\/p>\n
If everyone's rich, I very much doubt it will be a happy world.\u00a0 How else can people learn to share or learn to work hard?\u00a0 What more will people work for that is tangible and measurable by success?\u00a0 Will people become more lazy or too complacent?\u00a0 Or will people find something else to turn to that will change them for the worse?\u00a0 Will people honestly pay attention to non-monetary values given the trickiness of human nature?\u00a0 Think about it, knowing how human nature works, people will probably find ways to get even richer than they already are.\u00a0 And we will all be back to ground zero… just with higher inflation numbers.<\/p>\n
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