Money can be defined as coins and banknotes used as a medium of exchange of goods and services. It guarantees the achievement of exchange of goods and services by being the only item on offer that is always acceptable by everyone (Mishkin, p. 4). It is however necessary because human beings must exchange goods and services to live together in harmony and to prosper in their lives. The importance of money can be seen around us. Buildings, infrastructure, clothing, and vehicles are part of our lives. We spend money to acquire our needs.
In my opinion money is very important in our lives as it allows us to have a high standard of living, and almost have material things that we need in our day to day life. Money can buy us good houses, expensive cars, holidays and political position. For instance, Jon Corzine, spend around $60 million during his campaigns in New Jersey in only ten days during the last quarter of 2000 (Magnusson 10). Whilst this is true, I strongly believe that money cannot always buy everything that you want.
Money can’t buy love, friendship, happiness, or peace of mind, home, sleep, knowledge, time and health. Happiness is about how you feel inside your heart and not about money. Professor Lord Layard, of the London School of Economics and author of the book Happiness says that, money tends to make us happier. The conundrum of this is that there is no overall increase in happiness as the society gets richer. Instead, rich Western societies are afflicted with high levels of depression and jealousy. Youssou N’Dour claims that there is joy and happiness in Senegal though its people are not wealthy. The music and entertainment brings a lot of joy to the poor boys of Dakar. The viewpoint that says that money will make us happy is false because money will not always lead us to happiness nor can we purchase happiness with it. Moreover, money can’t buy us love. Love is not for sale and thus we can’t put a price on it. In addition, money can’t buy us friendship either. We can’t spend money trying to buy people’s trust and affection.
On the other hand, having money that makes our lives comfortable is good. Every human being will want to live a contented life and be able to acquire his needs without straining (Mishkin, p. 40). As seen above money will help us get food, toys, go to schools and buy home or apartment. Instead, we have to be very cautious on how to deal with riches in our lives. Money can also bring hatred amongst families and friends. It can also break relationship due to disagreement or mistrust. In the end, it leaves us with empty hearts and hatred. That leads once again to our question: can money really buy everything? Not our souls; not friendship, affection, salvation, homes.
Having money might be able to buy you everything you want but it doesn’t change some things like; sickness, getting late for work among others. Good health can not usually be bought and getting satisfactory health care can be hard for communities of lower earnings. Money is certainly a tool that helps us to acquire good health care. Here, I would like to say that money helps us get everything we need in life but can also make us lose self dignity and respect. One should not allow money to get in their way such that it may hurt loved ones, and control your mind. We should control the money and not the control us.
Moreover, one should use money for good uses not bad ones and don’t get too greedy you might fall and lose everything.
Work Cited
- Mishkin, Frendrich. The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets. Boston: Addison Wesley, 2007. 40.
- Magnusson, Paul. “What Makes Jon Corzine Run: His rise in the Senate has been meteoric- so why is he aiming to be governor of Jersey?” Business Week 2004. 10.