Money can buy you 99.94% of all things… so why do we hate it so much?
“There are some things money can’t buy.”
I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that. I’d probably have a down-payment on a nice inner-city town house by now.
What gives me the craps though is the tone that it usually comes with. It’s the verbal equivalent of a wagging finger.
And it often comes when I’m telling a story about a deal that went well, or this nice thing or experience I’ve been able to buy for myself because a deal’s gone well.
“Well, you know Jon, there are some things money can’t buy.”
Get stuffed. Stop trying to bring me down. Get off my cloud, man.
There is some wisdom in that statement, for sure. But nowhere near as much as most people think. Nowhere near as much as we’ve been brainwashed to believe.
So you know me, I’m a man of science. I like to see the data. So I did a little research.
When I did a search for “things money can’t buy” I came up with a list of 10. Sometimes the list got up to 50.
(At least according to the memes generated by bored middle-American house wives.)
Take this comprehensive list I found at DIY Feng Shui . com
There’s some impressive scholarship right there.
Some of the items on the list seem a little spurious. Clean arteries? I’m pretty sure I could hire a dietician and a cook and have that one sorted pretty quickly. A good hair day? Likewise, just get your own personal hair dresser.
But let me be generous. Let’s assume that there are 50 things that money can’t by.
Now according to the Oxford English dictionary, there are 174,000 words in the English language. Just over half of them are nouns. So about 87,000.
So of the 87,000 things in existence, 50 of them cannot be bought.
That’s 0.06% of things that money can’t buy.
That means that money can buy 99.94% of all things.
See where I’m going with this? Money is powerful. There’s no hiding from this fact. Anyone who tells you any different has their head in the clouds/arse.
But then come back to that list of 50. Many of those things – peace of mind, a clear conscience, a sense of purpose, patience – they come from within. These are things you cultivate within yourself. In that sense they’re free.
So money can’t buy some things that are free. Well, no kidding.
But what if we go right to the top of the tree? – to the things that are so powerfully unobtainable by money that even the Beatles are writing songs about it. Love, Happiness, Respect.
Even then I’d argue, that these things are a whole lot easier to achieve when you have money.
Now of course money can’t buy you love directly, unless your definition of love involves streaming video and a credit card, but mine doesn’t.
But I have found that my wealth has given me the space in life to cultivate my relationships with my loved ones. It’s given me the freedom to spend quality time with them whenever I want.
With time, care and attention, the flowers of love grow. But money has given me the power to use my time in the way I want to use it, and I have used to it to fertilise the flowerbeds of love.
Are you going to tell me it’s easier to building deep and loving relationships when you’re working 80hr weeks on minimum wage just to survive?
Same goes for happiness. Money is not the same as happiness, but can help you cultivate the conditions in which happiness flourishes – a sense of autonomy, meaningful purpose, an optimism about the future.
These things can be easier to call into your life if you have the wealth to back up your intentions.
And respect and self-worth? I’ve worked shitty jobs where I was bossed around mini-dictators, and I’m telling you, it’s was much harder to hold a sense of self-worth then than it is now, where I’m my own boss, I do work I love, and I call the shots.
My wealth gives me the ability to say no to the things that don’t align with my values. It’s a much harder call when you’re struggling to get by.
For me, money is a tool. So why do we criticise the tool?
It’s like one time I told my wife I was going to Bunnings to buy a hammer so I could build a dog-house.
She said, “There’s more to life than hammers, Jon.”
“yes, but you asked me to build a do—“
“There are some things hammers can’t build Jon.”
The point is so trivial I wonder why we give so much energy to reinforcing it in our culture.
How many people do you actually know who have mistaken tool for purpose? How many people do you actually know who have fallen into the trap of thinking that money is everything?
I don’t know any.
I’m sure it happens, but the risk is totally out of proportion to how vehemently we pour water on anyone’s dreams of wealth and financial freedom.
Here’s a thought for you…
The space-reptile illuminati have brainwashed us into thinking is money is evil – to energetically repel it at every turn, because without financial freedom,
- we are chained to the machine,
- we lack self-respect and so we become servile,
- we don’t have time for deep relationships and so we feel a need to work out our frustrations by working harder
- we are miserable because screw humans, stupid monkeys.
And just for laughs we’ll make them feel righteous about how much they hate money.
I don’t know if any of that is true, but the next time someone tells me, “money can’t buy everything, Jon,” I’m going to take their temperature to make sure they’re not a reptile.
Agree or disagree?
Is money a solve-everything solution?
If it is, why does it get such a bad wrap?
Michael says
“There’s more to life than hammers, Jon” – This is gold 🙂
JIM says
I would agree with you Jon, Our culture tells us that money & rich people are bad, but my experience tells me that money is a very good thing to have, life definitely is more pleasant & easy with money than without it
Paul Kenny says
Hi Jon
As you know it is definitely more comfortable to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy.
Cheers Paul
Stuart says
In the words of David Lee Roth:
“Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”
George Mitchell says
Well if any of you rich happy people out there want to share some happiness with me. I would be really happy about that.
Suze says
Now usually I tend to agree with Jesus, him being a guy with some pretty good common sense, but sometimes Not……
The parable of the Widows Mite always struck me as stoopid because the rich guys were donating gold, which was helpful, but the widow donated a Mite, which was next to nothing, because that was all she had.
Now that Mite wasn’t going to buy her or anyone else anything much, because of the low value. But the Gold that the rich guys were giving was going to do some good for the community. But Jesus said Good for Her! And then he poopooed the rich guys.
Now that’s not fair on so many levels.
First, the rich guys had to earn it.
Then they donated it.
Then they donated it in amounts that were useful.
And the recipients were grateful for the gold, but probably not for the mite.
Lastly, the poor widow probably was not able to achieve riches in a male-centric society.
So my revised take on this storey is, money can do a lot of good, so seek it, but not for itself.
Money achieves things, poverty does not.
It’s what people DO with money that determines their happiness levels.
Ladies, we now have the chance to determine our own wealth levels if we choose.
Glenn Jackson says
Love the Logic behind the 99.94%, although there are some nouns I would not like to buy!
Paul says
A long time ago John Keats wrote….”Love in a hut with water and a crust is love forgive us cinders ashes trust.” Money, albeit often not very much is necessary to support Love. One thing money can not buy is Respect and Real Love.
Paul says
Misper the word ‘trust’ should read ‘dust’ ………..”cinders ashes dust”
Mr.Gunna B. Rich says
Give me a couple of million, I’ll show you happyness! As for keeping my family members alive through the best possible care anywhere in the world…..money. Poor,lazy,uneducated people reasure themselves that money cant buy you happyness…. I’m going to work my arse off,invest,develop, then spend the rest of my days spoiling my kids and giving them a full life with lots of money.
Robert says
Happiness is correlated with wealth to a point. Studies show that richer countries are on the whole happier than poorer ones, but there are exceptions. Latin American countries tend to score high on happiness despite being relatively poor. I believe this is because of their emphasis on human connection. More money would only make me a little happier because I live in a country where community has been devalued in search of money.
Most places I go in Australian cities, people are closed, requiring considerable effort, energy and charm to open up. Resources that I don’t always have. Everybody goes to work. Child rearing is becoming institutionalised. High house prices are forcing everyone to work harder and homelessness is on the rise. Isolation is a growing phenomenon. People have fewer close friends that they did a generation ago. Talk to experienced psychologists and they will tell you what the trends are.
Your assertion that money will fix this is not true, and if it is, it’s only because we’ve collectively chosen to build our society that way. It is not possible for everyone to be employerless, however much we wish that were true, and many self-employed people have less free time for relationships than those with employers. Most new businesses will not make their operators rich.
Your assessment that people who hare employed are chained to the machine, lacking self-respect, servile, and without deep relationships is downright insulting to the vast majority of people. I’m employed. At various points in my life I’ve aspired to be self-employed, rich or both. I’ve had a go. But I’ve realised that I’ve found my calling, and I’m actually pretty happy with it, but I wouldn’t be without my Union. Then I really would be in danger of being abused by my employer, as so many are.
Union bashing is what people who have never been abused by the system do. I believe that Unions are a symptom of a healthy community that isn’t utterly dominated by those at the top. Weak leaders bash unions because they can’t win people over by force of argument, charm or wit. They don’t believe they should have to negotiate with those they employ. They believe they should be able to dictate terms without consultation. Unions force them to see that this is not the case.
Some of the happiest people I know in Australia have large families, don’t live in city, are self-employed, and have enough money to meet their needs, but not a lot spare. Other happy people I know do live in cities but have well established friendships and acquaintances dating back many years. Guess which ones are the most welcoming and generous?
Kohinoor says
Jon, aligned with the theme of your dissertation, is the good old quote “The love of money is the root of all evil”.
That is the REAL quote, not the shortened version (“Money is the root of all evil”) that is misquoted today almost as much as “alot” is used to describe the opposite of “alittle” :p
Now, what of “the love of money”? With finances being one of the major causes of relationship breakdowns, could it be that “the love of money” could be better re-defined as “the pre-occupation with money”?
Certainly, when one is living at the basic levels of Maslow’s needs, having the wherewithal to be able to eat and have shelter does become way more important in the scheme of things. Money really does help with those basic needs.
Money becomes less important as we rise above the basic needs and into the higher levels – still useful, but not so mandatorily so. From that then, could it be said that those living at/around the “basic needs of Maslow” are much more pre-occupied with money (necessarily so) than those of greater “means”.
Kohinoor
Jon Giaan says
i didn’t know that about “the love of money” but that makes a lot more sense. interesting…
Rick Eason says
Good article Jon. The bible is so misunderstood and misquoted about money. 1 Timothy 6:10 warns us against NOT money itself (as you said it’s just a tool), it warns that the LOVE of money is a root of ALL evil. Furthermore, Jesus made the astonishing claim that unless we are FAITHFUL in the use of money, God will not entrust us with the true riches (see Luke 16:11-13). Presumably, he taught us to be faithful in its use because it is more or less impossible to avoiding dealing with money.
Dee says
Personally I like the saying, “money isn’t everything, but it sure is up there with air. See how far you get without it!”.
Having said that though (& miserable people aside), sometimes I believe that should you find these type of comments coming your way, & especially from people who genuinely care about you & your wellbeing/future etc., then I think it is possible that they aren’t talking about money at all & could be trying to point out an imbalance between the tangible & intangible things in your life. And fear for you & the cost that may be coming your way.
And of course they might be wrong, but still might not be talking about money at all anyway.