Money is the root of all evil, or at least that’s what millions of people believe on this planet we call Earth.
It’s a negative saying that’s been drilled into the minds of youth, kids, society and anyone who doesn’t come from a household with a lot of money.
I know this all too well.
And that’s why I wanna talk about this concept and challenge it.
First of all, let’s talk about what money isn’t.
What money is NOT:
1. A bad thing to have
Growing up you’re taught that money is a bad thing to have on the basis of the person not having much to start with. That’s the logic when you analyze it.
As humans, we become angry at the things that don’t work out for us. And then we start to find blame or reasons to assign something as “bad” because of it.
2. Something that makes you evil
Another falsehood when it comes to money. Money doesn’t make you evil. Evilness is a human trait and a human idea to begin with.
You become evil based on who you have become, and money plays no part in making this a reality. It can only amplify what a person is.
A person who’s evil with money is evil without it.
3. A thing that makes you greedy
Money doesn’t make you greedy. Having desires to have things only for yourself, being selfish, and finding ways to cut others out of the equation is what makes you greedy.
Money is a tool, and it can’t do anything alone.
4. A thing you need to avoid having a lot of
Having a lot of money is a good thing, and to suggest otherwise is self destructive and what posh people would call “blasphemy”.
This is an irrational idea based around the person’s inability to make money or the fact that they’ve struggled with money, and so they justify that logic by saying it’s a thing you should avoid having a lot of.
Or it could be that the person had a lot of it and had a bad experience, and so they assign this logic to money which then prevents them from ever getting money again to that level.
5. Inherently negative or destructive
Money is manufactured. It has no inherent ability to be negative, destructive, or whatever else people view it as in a negative lens.
Human beings aren’t even bad people inherently, or destructive for that matter. But through trials, tribulations, setbacks, being hurt by others, and so on, a person can become bad in some aspects.
If they get their hands on money and do bad things, it’s not the money but the person.
The person is the problem, not the money. Saying otherwise makes money an unnecessary scapegoat.
What money absolutely is without question:
6. Abundant and plentiful
Money is all around us. From the houses on your street to the roads being built, to construction, cars, clothes, services, businesses, products, and the whole lot.
It’s there for you to have. It’s just a matter of finding ways to get your hands on enough money to benefit you in the ways that makes life easier.
I admit it’s not easy seeing it this way when you come from an environment of LACK, but when you switch over, the benefits can’t be outweighed.
7. Something positive
Money is about perspective, just like many other things in life, like relationships, rules, regulations, and so on.
Money is positive in the right hands, and it’s positive because of the good you can do with it.
It’s a matter of the right person getting their hands on a bunch of money so they can do good with it and hopefully inspire us into realizing money is a positive thing, and thinking otherwise does you no good.
8. A tool to create freedom
Money is a tool. A hammer helps you knock in the nail. It can help you build your own furniture, Chester draws, and other things.
Money is a tool that helps you buy the hammer, the Chester draws, or whatever it is you’re gonna need to build something with your hands.
Money also is a tool to create more freedom, time, leisure, and happiness when you accumulate enough of it, or you have more money than you do expenses.
Looking at it this way, money is more than just positive. It’s absolutely essential and beneficial.
9. A tool to help you finance your goals
Everyone has goals, it’s just most don’t sit down to think about their goals or what they want out of life. And others bury their goals because they lack self esteem and therefore believe they can’t achieve those goals.
And others allow others to tell them whether their goals are worth pursuing or not instead of leading their own lives and taking the steering wheel.
At the end of the day, money is a tool to help you finance your goals, fund your goals, and make it easier to bring it into reality.
We live in a system where money is the ruler, so if your goals require money, then the math is simple and shouldn’t be viewed in a negative way.
It’s the way it is.
10. Something you can use to help others
You can help other people without money, true, but why would you limit yourself in this way?
It does you no good, and it does the people you want to help no good either.
Money is a tool you can use to help others in more ways than you can without it. That’s a fact of society and a blessing for the person on the other side of the fence.
- Helping your local school with resources.
- Funding the local library.
- Funding a project to make your neighbours safer (or even your old neighbourhood).
- Helping your kids get through college.
- Being an angel investor.
Money makes helping others easier since it creates the freedom of choice to do exactly what you want with the more of it you have at your disposal.
11. A piece of paper that doesn’t care about race, gender, colour, or ethnicity
Notice how people care so much about:
- Race.
- Gender.
- Colour.
- Ethnicity.
- Culture.
And essentially what makes another person different from yourself (in a negative way a lot of the time)?
Money doesn’t give a shit about any of these irrelevant things and that’s why it’s powerful.
If a black man has money but his white neighbours hate his guts for it, does their hatred even matter? The answer is an obvious NO.
It makes that person look stupid.
Money breaks barriers, opens people’s eyes, reveals the truth, exposes people, and most of all, is a piece of paper with no feelings.
Money isn’t the problem, it’s people and how we use it or see it.
Why people believe money is the root of all evil:
They watch the mainstream news too often
I remember when I used to watch the mainstream to a certain degree, until I thought to myself “What the fuck am I even doing?” and realized it did nothing for me.
I want to live a happy life and one free of the bullshit I grew up seeing, and then I stopped that habit and wisened up.
Watching the mainstream news only feeds the negativity each human is prone to if in the wrong environment.
Rich people are doing bad things in the news? Now you can say “I told you so, money is the root of all evil”.
Absorbing negative money beliefs from family, friends, and surroundings growing up
Nothing affects you more than where you grow up, what information you absorb growing up, and the kinds of money habits you pick up from your parents, guardians, or whoever it is who housed you.
Home life can impact you dramatically as far as financial intelligence and the “Money is the root of all evil” mentality.
Then there are friends you start surrounding yourself with who can echo these ways of thinking, and that stretches further through teachers, strangers, neighbours, shopkeepers, and so on.
It’s a convenient excuse
Better to make an excuse than it is to hold yourself accountable, right? If you can use the excuse that money is the root of all evil, that absolves you from pursuing money and getting rich in the process.
After all, you’re a good, squeaky clean kind of person who is pure, innocent and has not a single drop of evil within you.
Nope. Only those rich wealthy people have evil inside them, and THAT is why they’re rich, and such a good person like yourself who contributes to society could never get rich since richness is attained through evil means.
Convenient excuses, aren’t they?
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is strong and it affects us all, which is why self awareness matters. Without it, you can’t recognize it and you can’t intervene when your mind is trying to confirm things that aren’t beneficial.
Take the example of money being the root of all evil. If you seek out information to prove yourself right, how does this help you exactly?
How does it help your financial situation, your wealth, your money, your mindset, your future, and your ability to be prosperous?
How does it help you make better investment decisions, saving decisions, financial choices, and smarter strategies or tactics?
Finding what you believe in this world is easy with Google, no matter how insane it is. Finding evil people with money is easy, except it only confirms your bias and destroys your chances of accumulating money (and freedom) in quantities you’d like.
Closed-minded
Being closed minded might be the most detrimental and dangerous way of thinking on the planet. When you close your mind the way you’d close a door and lock it, you prevent yourself from learning or seeing anything new.
That means:
- No new information which could help you.
- No new perspectives and ways of perceiving the world.
You end up ejecting everything so you can sit in your comfortable little bubble of knowledge, as long as it makes you feel good about yourself despite the fact it makes your financial life miserable and unnecessarily painful.
This is why “money is the root of all evil” is such a prevalent mindset. People refuse to open their minds out of stubbornness, ignorance, and the foolish idea that they’re “right” and morally correct despite being scared to prove it.
How “Money is the root of all evil” came to be
The original saying is taken from the bible, stating:
“For the love of money is the root of all evil.” – Timothy, New Testament
But the saying we have today is actually a misrepresentation of the saying since it originally talked about the LOVE of it being evil as opposed to money being the root of all evil in general.
Countries where the phrase “money is the root of all evil” is searched the most
When looking at the graph for the phrase in Google Trends, we can see it has been stable for years (since 2004).
This is measured by global searches.
When looking at the TOP countries that search and are interested in the term money is the root of all evil, we can see African countries in the top 5.
Here’s a breakdown:
- Ghana.
- Nigeria.
- South Africa.
- The Philippines.
- Kenya.
- Singapore.
- United States.
- Tunisia.
- New Zealand.
- Malaysia.
- Canada.
- Australia.
- United Kingdom.
- India..
- The Netherlands.
Handpicked Quotes about money being the root of all evil
“Money is the root of all evil I thought…. But when i’m broke is usually when I have the evilest thoughts.” – Fabolous
“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?” – Ayn Rand
“Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.” – Eric Hoffer
“Money isn’t evil. It is what people do with it that is.” – Soroosh Shahrivar
“Anybody tells you that money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any.” – Ben Affleck
“How can money be the root of all evil when shopping is the cure for all sadness?” – Elizabeth Taylor
Conclusion: Money isn’t the root of all evil, it’s the root of whatever you want it to be
And that’s my whole point here. There are good ways to view money, and there are stupid ways to view money.
Some people believe it’s evil, and their results will speak loud and clear.
Some believe it creates freedom, and so their pursuit of it creates exactly that.
Some see it as positive because that person is likely to be positive and will use it in positive ways, and the list goes on.
It’s the root of whatever you want it to be, so you might as well see it in the best light possible by being the best kind of person you can possibly be. And then only good things can come from that when followed up with action.