Meaningful Returns

I have no empirical data to support this claim, but anecdotally, one of the most misquoted sentences of all time is surely, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.” Many times people just say, “Money is the root of all evil.”

The reason the distinction is important is that the second one-the misquote–anthropomorphises money, giving it a moral fiber and a free agency which is a bit of a philosophical fallacy. Because of course money is just a made up, lifeless object with no sense of moral or ethical identity. It just is, like the hair on your head just is. You may have more or less of it than you desire, or perhaps it doesn’t do just what you want it to do, but to go about calling your hair the root of all evil would be pretty weird.

But the original statement (which comes from a man named Paul, in the Bible) gets at the deeper reality here (here being a world where all sorts of bad things seem to be caused by money, and also some good things seem to be caused by money). And the reality is, what can sometimes feel like money taking on a life of its own, displaying moral instincts or lack thereof–all of this is nothing more than the expression of human relationships with money.

Which is why, though there are hundreds of amazing books about money that you could read and be smarter and potentially wiser for, your relationship with money will always remain the central force in your money decisions. And like any relationship, you’ve got to work at it.