I’m back with yet another Room 101 post, and I have to thank Poetic from Stranger Than Fiction at http://po3tic.com
for providing me with the idea – THANK YOU Poetic!!!!!
Room 101 posts; I write about what I hate or dislike about one topic. In my post I have to try to persuade you, the reader, that the points I have raised are valid enough to consign the topic to Room 101. Therefore, you the reader have to get involved, leave me your opinions and decide if this topic is worthy or Room 101. After this, please then leave me your ideas for further Room 101 topics.
Further note: I would ask all contributors to be RESPECTFUL to the opinions of others. This is not an opportunity to ‘shout’ others down or forcibly exert your own opinion over anyone else’s. THANK YOU.
Room 101 and Money: What I Hate about Money (or the root of all evil).
Money makes money, and while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. What I dislike the most about money is the inequity it can bring to people and to life.
Let’s be honest, money does in fact make people’s life easier.
With money more opportunities, possibilities and doors are open to you. With money you don’t necessarily have to prove your worth, other than by flashing your cash (your literal worth). It seems that if you have wealth, you’re somehow more important to everyone, and those with wealth are very nearly untouchable. Unlike the rest of us, many of the wealthy aren’t always subject to the same laws, rules, governance and so on that dominate our lives and circumstances.
It seems that having money elevates you and your standing in the world; which seems so superficial and cold. I cannot quite understand how anyone can be measured solely on one element of themselves, and that element is strictly material based. Sometimes it seems that people value money more than their own self or ‘soul’. Without money, it seems that you are merely left behind in the world, and the division money creates in life only increases between those who have and those who don’t have.
This division is very clear when we consider the daily and force-fed media messages we receive. Telling us all that we have to spend money, we have to obtain money and that we have to emulate the life of some rich and powerful person. Money signifies status, grandeur, power, beauty and success and so on, One example of this, and one I particularly hate, is glib programmes regarding the money and lifestyles of the rich; the Russian billionaires, the business tycoons, the footballers, the ‘pop’ stars and so on. I find this type of ‘information’ to be trashy and inappropriate, especially when nearly 1/2 of the world’s population, more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, that’s less than $1.25 a day, and not to forget the 2. 1 billion children worldwide living in poverty.
I know these programmes are supposed to offer escapism from the reality that people are impoverish, and are scraping by in meagre existences. But, it feels as though all of this wealth promotion is just a slap in our already sore faces. All of this wealth culture seems to be saying that ordinary life isn’t good enough, because it is missing something, and that ‘profound’ something is the absence of a large bank account, oh, and a yacht.
For those of us without a yacht we still live a life; why then are we made to feel that we’re missing out? Why is it we are told we have to be wealthy or at least pretend to be? The myth of wealth creation annoys me too, because no one wants to accept that gaining wealth often is a hopeless hope and impossible dream. It is rather like the ‘stick’ the lottery conjures every week to make us yearn for the ‘carrot’. People pin their entire hopes on winning the big ticket so they can change their lives overnight. I actually know people who have a lottery plan, and in this is everything they will do, once they win (good luck with that one). I feel these people are wasting their lives by chasing money that will in reality never be theirs. They seem to believe that without this money their lives are empty and their being is meaningless. Yes, money does have a great power to motivate us all in our lives, so much so that people will kill, lie, cheat, steal, bribe, kidnap and all the other bad things we will do just to get it.
Is it fair that so few have so much?? When you consider that eighty people have as much wealth as 50% of the rest of humanity it kind of makes you wonder why, and who those people actually are and what they actually do?! I am not suggesting that we redistribute wealth. In my opinion that won’t work. Yet when people make money, such gargantuan amounts, do they ever stop to think about those who don’t literally have a pot to urinate in? Do they ever think about how they actually made that money? Do they consider just how privileged they are in the world? Do they even try to make a difference and help others? In many cases I doubt they do, and not because they don’t necessarily have a moral conscience. It is just because if they were so eager to change the system that provided them with money, then they would no longer be wealthy and reside in such a privileged position in life. Money does after all make money, and the system helps to grease the wheels that turn it.
So for me, I suppose I hate what the prospect of money can do. How it can turn people into greedy, lying, cheating, desperate sharks. I hate how money unsettles the balance of power and control in life. I hate how poorer people are often left to founder when there is so much wealth in world. I hate how we value money often more than life and that without money people feel that their life and selves are unfulfilled and stunted.
What do you think??
Let me have your opinions, and let me know if you think what I hate about money deserves a place in Room 101.
Give me your ideas for another Room 101 topic I can post about
The Savvy Senorita 