Don’t let the heart rule over money or let money break your heart, writes Nagesh Alai
I find it interesting that the profound ‘money in not everything in life’ is often mouthed by many of the rich and the famous and the successful. A truism it may be, but it is quite an inverse humility to sound like an oracle, sitting amid a cache of cash and billions in banks. This is not meant to belittle their hard-earned success and wealth in anyway, but the inherent condescension and judgement in the statement is reflective of a covert pride and prejudice becoming an overt play to the gallery, deeply shallow that it sounds. Especially in a country like India, where poverty reigns and millions lead a hand-to-mouth existence, despite the pompous and delusory claim of a developed country.
This goes as much for the so-called spiritual gurus, with very few exceptions, leading a façade of a spartan life but living in a background of infinite money and clout pandering spirituality to the secure and the insecure caught up in the travails of life and a chase of the uncertain future. They will hold forth on mind over matter, self-realisation, knowing oneself, attaining a higher goal and purpose and what not, most of which will be esoteric to the exoteric followers. The eternal chase of these ensure that the followers keep following with no end in sight, enriching the coffers of the spiritual gurus, with their pro-bono time and donations. The followers are told chasing wealth is futile and there is more to life than that. But then, these gurus are doing exactly the opposite of what they advise the followers. They are money spinning and spewing initiatives. Some are criminal in nature. This is not cynicism, but facts that anyone who deigns to do honest research can validate. The convicted Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan (don’t miss the convenient appellation of a name), gurus with huge following, are just two examples of the con game. There are and have been enough examples of devils masquerading as gurus, the world over.
It will not be incorrect to say that, save for the few born with the proverbial silver spoon, many of them must have gone through the three stages of life when money was everything, money was something and money is not everything. These are indicative of the relative financial situations at various times of life involving struggle, success and surfeit. Unarguably, money is a need and serves the temporal purpose, but the moment the needs, wants, indulgences and lifestyles are sated, it stops having relevance and could become ruinous as history has shown, replete with instances of inglorious falls. While the wise and the mature become munificent while growing, the unwise and the immature go downhill on a roller coaster ride to destruction. Greed chases money, but it is a no-win race to perdition. The contrasting examples of the closer-home Ambani brothers, scions of a small-time trader from Kalbadevi who went on to become a household name in India with footprints across products and services to consumers, is a case in point. Mukesh Ambani is exponentially growing and a force to reckon with doing India proud while Anil is in ruins and become an embarrassment to India. Both, born with silver spoons and handed down gold platters; but one saw it as a responsibility and the other saw it as an entitlement. Everything in life gets defined by the response to a stimulus. Another case in point could be that of Marcus Crassus, a greedy Roman general and stateman, who met with an inglorious and barbaric death at the hands of the Parthians, with molten gold poured into his mouth to mock his chase of gold. Clearly, one may amass wealth with hundreds of hands but one should also freely distribute it with thousands of hands. Hoarded wealth may eventually prove ruinous. MacKenzie Scott, American philanthropist and ex-wife of Jeff Bezon, giving away billions of the dollars from her divorce settlement is a case of exceptional generosity of mind and spirit. As are Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, who were the prime movers in evangelising pledge of wealth to the society at large. Closer home, the philanthropic house of Tata is a stand out exemplar. If Tatas say ‘money is not everything’, it is believable and inspirational, but not by any and sundry.
At the other end of the spectrum are the multitudinous plebians and the impoverished for whom ‘money is everything’ quite unambivalently. Take the case of the delivery boys and girls in the gig economy, working for say a Swiggy or a Zomato or a Blinkit or a hundred others. They lead an extraordinarily risky and arduous life, working for 14 hours a day on the choking high streets without respite and held accountable for timely deliveries. Most of us would not even be aware of their struggles and many of us would just ignore it, as we are more bothered about timely deliveries and quick service. A gated community that I live in has a strict security control and often these delivery boys complain about the valuable time they have to waste answering the questions of the security time and again, in spite of prior approvals. Every second is money for them. I had to face the anguish of a Swiggy person recently who was lamenting the delay and how it cuts into his earnings. Though it was no fault of mine, I was empathetic and gave him a handsome tip to make up for his time loss. The point is ‘money is everything’ for them. They are literally daily wage earners and will not be able to support their families unless they earn for every second that they are on the roads and get more and more pick-up orders. A cobbler in my vicinity, in his late 70s, migrated to the city to make ends meet, working for 15 hours a day at his wayside booth, only to earn paltry sums. He is a poor farmer, from a middle of Maharashtra and drought prone village. He holds a very small piece of land and the produce is just enough to sustain his family, with no surplus for any sale. Except for some MNREGA doles from the government, he does not have any source of money. To supplement his income, he had to take the drastic step of migrating to Mumbai, the city of gold as they say, to eke out a living. Suffice it to say, he lives in squalour. But he is happy that he does not have to beg. For him, money is everything. There are a million others like him. Take the case of a typical house hold help or a courier or a cleaner or a peanut seller or anyone else who throng the streets peddling something or the other; they have to work hard to earn the bare minimum to survive.
Then we have the in-between like the middle class, probably just out of the ‘money is everything’ phase, but still struggling to meet ends. They are in an aspirational state of mind, having made some progress in life, but still a long way to go. Money is something for them since they need to earn more of it to improve their lot in their quest for identity, relevance and status. Many of them want their children to go to the best of schools or live in a comfortable home in a decent locality or send money home to their parents or provide for them or go on travels or buy a vehicle. They are willing to work hard to fulfil these goals. Unfortunately, there have been sordid instances of patricide, matricide, fratricide and filicide, emblematic of the difficult relationship with money and the psychology of money itself.
Money is a complex subject in itself, much beyond its basic meaning of a medium of exchange or a mean to buy or sell or transact. A good money management is pillared on right earning, prudent spending, judicious saving and wise giving. It is a deeply personal matter and is best left to individuals to deal with it. But one thing is for sure, each of us have to learn the art of money and understand the psychology of money. Money can make or break us depending on our depth of its study. Valentine’s Day is around the corner and while going around dating and proposing, don’t let the heart rule over money or let money break your heart. Money has its own credo.