The problem with capitalism is that too many people are chained to the belief that money buys happiness. My 22 year old granddaughter thinks she wants to go to Iceland; but immediately squelches her dream with doubt and hopelessness that it can ever come true. She works at a minimum wage job where she can see no way out of her present situation. When I was her age, I was weighed down by a similar lack of optimism and persistent discouragement about the bad hand life had dealt me.
It is true that many of the things we would like to have in life require money. Some people succeed at manipulating life in such a way, as to be able to climb from poverty into wealth; but often they lose it all within a short time. They erroneously believe that they can continue to acquire more and more; and that the acquisition of the next thing will bring them the happiness they seek. They live under the illusion that their power lies in the accumulation of money and material things. This is their reality. Money, in and of itself, has no power. It is nothing more than a medium of exchange. It is neither good, nor evil.
Those of us who have learned that dreams do not in fact, require money, but a heartfelt belief in the dream itself, have come to realize our own power. We have learned that “dreams really do come true” – when we believe with all our heart and soul. This of course, is only half of the story because when our dreams finally do come true, they can slip away in an instant. Nothing lasts forever. All things, whether they bring us great joy, or great pain, eventually pass away. This is when we must go deeper into our understanding. This is when we come to see that our individual lives mean nothing. Our wants and desires, our complaints and criticisms are merely the ego clamoring for our attention. When we realize, finally, that our life is not about what we can get from life; it is about what we can give. When we learn that our life is truly about giving and being of service to others, we find that our needs are always met. We discover that the elusive happiness that we had spent a lifetime chasing, was inside of us all along; and the only thing we have accumulated is wisdom.
