I love money – as we all do. Yet, money isn’t everything. There are things in life that are much more important than money itself, or anything that money is capable of buying.
The reality is that even though we live in a capitalist world, the most valuable things in life come without a price tag. This is important to keep in mind as more and more people every year seem to be losing sight of this fact.
Money cannot buy you everything. Here are 7 of the most important things that the richest person in the world can still very well be lacking:
1. Time.
In reality, time is the only valuable currency on the planet – it is the only currency with intrinsic value. Likewise, it’s the only currency that you can spend, but never make. Time cannot be forged, stolen or borrowed.
No matter how much money you have, the time that you have already spent is time that you will never again have. This is something that you should keep in mind the next time you decide to waste your time.
You have one life, one chance to make it all count – make it all mean something. You can be the richest person in the world, but if you run out of time, every dollar means nothing.
2. Love.
You can buy sex. You can buy intimacy. You can buy the boyfriend/girlfriend experience. But you will never be able to buy true love because true love is never for sale.
If anything, money makes finding love more difficult – it brings suitors your way, which, in reality, have no interest in anything but the depth of your pockets.
Money brings out the worst in people and if often brings out those willing to make you believe they love you, just so that they can have access to your bank accounts. If anything, money is the opposite of love.
3. Happiness.
We’ve all heard that money can buy you a jet ski and that no one has ever been unhappy on a jet ski, but unless you plan on living on that jet ski all year round, money won’t buy you happiness. I’m often left to believe that the only way to be happy is to be happy when you have nothing in the world but yourself.
Otherwise, the fear of loss itself taints your mood, ruining your happiness. Only when you can learn to be happy without a single dollar in your wallet will you learn to be happy under almost any circumstance. Money cannot buy you happiness. In fact, it can make being happy incredibly difficult.
4. Courage.
Contrary to popular belief, you aren’t born with courage – or rather, you aren’t born with any more or less courage than the next guy. We are all capable of being courageous, of taking risks to maximize reward.
Courage doesn’t mean always facing dangerous situations. It can mean to face yourself and face your illogical fears. We all have fear of failure, fear of being disliked and shunned.
We all have little fears here and there, which, when summed all together, can make our lives difficult to live. Courage isn’t something you can buy or sell – it’s something you have to realize you already possess.
5. Intellect.
Money can buy you all the books in the world. It can get you the best teachers, the best education, the best chance at becoming a highly intelligent individual. What it can’t buy you is the will to do the work necessary to increase your intellectual capacity.
Most people are dumb not because they didn’t have access to a great means of education, but rather because they either didn’t believe it was important to learn or because they didn’t believe themselves capable of learning.
We live in an age in which information flows freely and anyone just about anywhere can learn whatever it is they would like to learn from the comfort of their homes. No money necessary.
6. Purpose.
Let me start off by saying that money in itself is not a purpose worth living for. It’s not really a purpose at all, but a byproduct. Those who are incredibly wealthy aren’t incredibly wealthy because they simply set out to become incredibly wealthy. It may have been otherwise centuries ago, but those days are long gone.
Making significant amounts of money is much harder than it used to be – these days you need to first find a purpose. Without a purpose in life we are lost. We are confused. We make poor decisions and end up living lives that we hate with all our soul.
Purpose is arguably the most important thing a person can have. It’s not something that can be bought, but rather something that you have to find within yourself.
7. A Legacy.
Money is no legacy – unless you’re George Washington. Legacy is the result of a life lived with purpose, full of success, as well as failures. You see, what few people realize is that although people love to hear about success stories, they love to hear about the struggle that led to that success.
No one wants to hear a story without a storyline – what is a race if there is nothing but the start and the finish?
A legacy is a life that was lived properly. It’s a life that was lived with such powerful purpose and direction that others are left in awe simply from trying to understand what exactly was accomplished.
To leave a legacy behind after you kick the bucket, you have to create massive, positive change, for a massive amount of people. Money may be the tool used to create a legacy – although it certainly doesn’t have to be – but money alone will not buy you a legacy.
