When Money Becomes the Problem

I think one of the ironies of our life is that money creates more problems than solutions for us. There are numerous examples from our personal experiences, if we care to look and understand. Husband and wife would work together to save money for a car. When they have enough money, they may fight on which car to buy! There was no money to buy a big house and a family lived with great bonding between members. When they got a big house, all kept them locked in their own rooms and started enjoying life with their own preferences. One of my friends once said, the love and mutual respect is best only in families which are poor. When money comes and in all rich families, there are only infightings and heartburns.

One can wonder if this phenomenon is because people have not gotten used to having lots of money. Obviously if one lived without money for many years, one would behave unbalanced when one gets too much money. But it is not as simple as this theory. Otherwise Ambani brothers fought against each other only when their businesses became too big. There are numerous cases of infighting in richest of the families, including in the royal families.

Certainly such infightings because of money are signs of lack of culture and grooming. Truly refined people won’t be fighting in such petty manners. But that is perhaps a flipside of money; it corrupts. I think money has corruption powers and we can’t really put hundred percent of blame on parties involved. Even though, the parties have to resolve the conflict by themselves. Just because money is involved, we can’t say that both parties have worked justifiably and the real culprit is money. Now I see merit in age old teachings in our Indian/Hindu culture where we were taught from childhood to look down on money. Money was looked as something which is bad. People with too much greed for money were looked down in society. People who did not work for money, were considered best of the lot. But not having money is no solution. We should reach a stage when we have money and yet we do not lose our balance in life.

Money is solution to a lot of problems. But it is ironical that after a point, it is the money which becomes the problem and there are not solutions in sight for such a problem.

- Rahul

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]