Why Money
Money. What is it? There are plenty definitions of it so I will pull out
three:
According to Investopedia.com, Money is an economic unit that functions as a generally recognized medium of exchange for transactional purposes in an economy. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says money is something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. The Collins dictionary simply puts it this way that money is the coins or bank notes that you use to buy things, or the sum that you have in a bank account.
The common theme centered around these definitions is that money is
basically a means of exchange of value. In the early days of commerce, barter
trade was the order of the day where individuals would exchange goods or
services directly for other goods or services. Basically there had to be an
agreement between the participants involved to ascertain that the value of one
good or a couple of goods was equivalent to that of another. For instance, if
my friend Amy has an iPhone 11 then I would propose that we make an exchange
and I offer her two iPhone 7s and a Galaxy Tab A3. If she agrees to these terms
then the exchange is then executed and everyone would have been satisfied as
the value is not lost. This was phased out with the introduction of coins to
represent value which eventually led to the paper notes we see today.
Now enough of that history lesson, let us go back to the issue at hand:
Why Money? People have different views on the subject of money. Many will tell
you that money is good and I agree. I mean it is probably as valuable as oil
and gold in itself. The food we eat, cosmetics we use, gas we buy all need to
be purchased using money. So if money is so good, why is it vilified by others?
You hear quotes like "money is the root of all evil" or "too
much money is bad for you" and plenty other things. As much as there are
traces of truth in those statements but the same can be said of many other good
things. The problem is that we forget that money really is just a medium of
exchange and the lack of it in the 21st century is pretty dangerous.
A lot of people do not understand the concept of money and this has led
to bankruptcy, divorce, broken marriages, torn families, war and many other bad
things. If people understood how it works then with proper planning and
preparation, then a lot of us would not complain as much or we would be in a
better financial position.
"To earn a living" basically means finding a way to earn
money. It could be through work, through business or other means. Being an
adult, you cannot escape from the reality that is to earn money to survive.
Therefore to conclude this opening blog post I will say that money is the most
important commodity in everyday life so we must learn to understand it, tame it
and get ahead of it.
