The Power of Money

 

Disclaimer: Content in this post features only persona opinions. Readers may agree to disagree. The purpose is not to raise any argument. Kindly enjoy the post for the beauty of reading only.

Money has it’s influence on almost everything in the world, except life, love and faith. But how true is this? Traditional and religious hardliners may argue that money cannot buy a life. 

Life? 

But that too is possible right? The world today, is the time of surrogate mothers and artificial insemination when it comes to childbirth. Money plays a role in both these situations as you have to pay a surrogate mother for her to bear your child and you have to pay the doctors for artificial insemination. 

As of when they are presented with these examples, those same hardliners would then ask, ‘but you can’t create life without money, can you?’

But the answer remains the same. Science has recently discovered a way to this too from stem cell research. Scientists have discovered the building blocks of life to be in a single cell in a woman’s womb. Using this cell and merging it with another cell from a male’s reproductive organ under controlled room temperatures, they were able to create life too! And now the hardliners have become speechless. So that takes care of life, so we consider if money really influences love.

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Love…

Does it really exist in today’s world? Whenever love is mentioned, one’s mind and senses immediately deviate to the romance that we see on screen today. But love means much more than that, and it would be a sin to limit its definition to the romance of the youth. First parents love their children which their children return. Then as the child grows up, he would love his toys, belongings, clothes, what he sees online and what he reads in books. He might love particular hobby; he might love particular place that he went to or wishes to go to in the future. He loves his friends too, which after he grows up to be a man might change into love for someone from the opposite gender. Then he might love his job, his partner in life and his own children, or the pets he keeps at home.

But all these kinds of love also have the influence of money somewhere in them. Obviously, it is naturally divine for a mother to love the child that she gave birth to. And a father is no different too, hence removing the case of parents being influenced by money at the beginning. But after that, comes the problem.

Both parents always wish the best of what one can get in life, for their children. For this both are ready work how much ever is needed and do whatever they can, so that they earn enough ‘money’. 

So like that comes the influence of money into their lives, as they slowly get addicted to money and don’t stop even if they have enough for their immediate needs.

Next about a child loving his parents; for an infant it is the love and security that he gets from them. 

But starting from his adolescence, the ‘love for money’ grows along with him too. 

He loves his parents more not because they are his parents; but rather loves them for how much they get him with their earnings. The more toys or clothes a son or daughter gets from his or her parents, the more the parents are loved. Parents are loved more if their children find their lifestyles very leisurable. Parents are loved more if their children get admitted into schools with better infrastructure. It goes on and on like this when finally during their old age, when parents depend on their children for looking after the former, their children now love their parents more if their parents spend lesser and not heave a financial burden on their now grown-up children’s shoulders.

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The same thing is applicable for loving friends or loving someone from the opposite gender. Young boy or girl love their friends more if the latter is richer and can provide them with several goods and modes of entertainment which the same young boy or girl won’t find in their own home. Money plays an important role in their life even at that age. Then coming to the age of romance, the normal line any girl would ask a working man who is interested in her is, “How much do you earn monthly?” In the other way, the boy would ask the girl not what she is interested in or whether she likes him or not, but rather he would ask, “What does your father do?” So even love is influenced by money.

Then comes the question of faith. 

In reality, faith is the one that is most influenced by money. Be it faith in a religion, faith in family, faith in one’s company, faith in friends, faith in one’s nation and faith in love and life; everything is dictated a lot by money.

Even worshipping God, is not free these days. Be it a temple mosque or church, one has to pay them in way or the other. It could be contributions or fees for the respective persons in charge of the prayers at different venues of different faiths, for prayers. It could be offering charity in the name of God, it could be slaughtering animals in the name of God, it could be decorating the place of worship to appease God or it could even be the holding of several festivals to celebrate one’s religion.

 Money influences how each festival is celebrated. For a poor man, adorning the idol in his temple with a single garland is something for which he had to save money since a year. But for a wealthy person, adorning the same idol with a dozen garlands costs the same to him as giving a couple of coins to a beggar. Both of them share the same faith and worship their lord in the same way. But the way they show their piousness differs with the money that have to spend. So, their faith too is tested by money.

A worker might have more faith in the company that he works in, if it pays him more. A member of the home might have more faith in his or her family if it asks for less money and instead earns more money for that particular member. One believes in his or her nation more if that nation earns more and is more developed. A Nigerian would have more faith in the United States of America than he has in his own country. Why? The answer is very obvious, because the USA earns and gives him more ‘money’, than he could ever earned in a full lifetime by stating in Nigeria. Love and life too lie in the shadow of money, as explained previously.

Hence accept or deny it, money was is and will remain to be a very powerful force. Instead of defying it and moving away from it, one must learn to harness it and use it wisely. One must keep money under his or her control and now became a slave to it, as the saying goes, 

“Too much of anything is good for nothing.”

@Authior Yasir Sulaiman