Money, money, money....

For the past couple weeks, I've experienced something which is unnerving in one sense, but refreshing in another. The topic with which I have been grappling with is money. Now I do not doubt the importance of money. I know that in this society, and in fact much of the world, it is the currency with which we purchase our necessities, as well as the few luxuries we enjoy in life. But that's exactly what it is: something with which you attain another, or in other words "a means to an end". However, over the past year, as more and more of my peers have settled into jobs, including myself, it is disturbing to see how for many, money has now become THE END in and of itself. Many people are only concerned with how much money they will make, how much time it will take for them to make it, how to use certain tax shelters, how we can manipulate rulings so that the word "interest" falls out of the equation so that we can invest and make more and more and more and more....

Don't get me wrong, I too had fallen (and in many ways continue in my downward spiral) into this kind of rumination. Day and night I would scribble on paper how many hours a day I'd have to work and how many patients I'd have to see an hour to make a certain amount of money. It got to the point where it was almost pathologic. Now while I thought this was most unusual, I realized that there are people who think about money in almost a hallucinogenic state.
Something has changed though. I don't know how or why, but for the past week now, any lengthy discussion on money elicits a an extreme visceral reaction within me. I literally feel nauseous, so much to the point where I consciously try not to think about it. Alhumdulillah I have been feeling less stressed and alleviated as a result.

I have been thinking a lot lately about why it is that money has taken the position of "end" and has outgrown its traditional role as the "means". Why is it that some arbritrary amount of money which we may amass is equated with happiness? Why is it that we almost repulsively look down on people who shrug off and make light of the importance of money? This isn't about the "have's and the have nots", the "have's" being able to self righteously contemplate on the triviality of money without any practical knowledge as to its importance to the "have nots". If anything, the wealthy people with money desire to accumulate more and more of it than those who don't! Money IS important, as I said, for our sustenance and well being. But how much is the question? Or better yet, how badly should we strive to have more? Is it money that we actually want? Or is it happiness? Are they the same? Can one be the means of the other? Many say that "money makes the world go round". Others will say that "it is the root of all evil". I wouldn't go so far, but what I am fascinated about what makes it so tempting? Why does it have the power over us that it more assuredly does? Just wondering what people have to say about this. Why do you think people are so fascinated and are caught up in this endless pursuit of money? (The answer may be obvious, but it would be interesting to know what people verbalize).