nin137

I do it for the money

one thing that i've come to notice since starting my own law
firm is that i love making money. i don't know if it's
because i've been quite poor most of the past 10 years or
because i just enjoy the fact that i am producing something,
with money as the token of my achievement.

there is a great passage in atlas shrugged that i found at
this web site:
http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=1826

it is a character in the book reacting to another who said
that "money was the root of all evil." i feel like a dirty
fucking capitalist greed bastard when i say i love money.
and it's not an insane love but more of an appreciationg.
you see, i totally know that money can't buy happiness, that
it is not going to replace me as a human being. what i want
and desire is what i need to know myself, money can't just
conjure it out of nowhere. but there is one passage in
there that i will go ahead adn just stick in here that i
absolutely love becvause i feel that it captures my love of
money:

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of
all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To
love money is to know and love the fact that money is the
creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to
trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's
the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is
loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good
reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work
for it. They know they are able to deserve it."

i'd like to think that this applies to me. i love money
because i appreciate what it means. it means that i am
selling my professional services to people. it is the best
i can contribute to society. money, to me, the more i earn,
is a value that society places on my knowledge. what's
more, i am a workaholic. i jsut love working hard and
working a lot. the more money i make the more deserving i
feel of it, because it is a token to my hard work.

it is hard for me to turn away clients. i accumuulate them
and their money because i see it as an expansion of my
service and the hard work that i put in to what i do. the
more i make, the more clients i have, the more i have given
out. it is really hard for me to truly capture
my feelings towards making money. one feeling i have is
that i am not in anyway ashamed of it because i feel that i
completely deserve it.

another is that i feel that i should do good with it. to
just give it away. i want to save for my (future)
children's college tuition. i want to save for retirement.
and i want to give to charity. truth be told, juliann and
i don't USE a lot of money, primarily because we ahve lived
with so litle for such a long time.

although it sounds stupid and somewhat base to say it, money
to me is like a collecting hobby. that's what it is, the
more i collect the better i can measure my value to society.
this is the value that society has givne me for all that i
have produced. it is not a one way street. i have given
the knowledge i have gained over the past 10 years in
exchange. i have made people better off (hard to believe i
know as i am attorney!). it is a symbol of my helping those
in need. to help create contractual relationships that make
more money.

what i hate is when people refuse to acknowledge money or
their need of it. or those, of course, who call it "evil"
and say that it is a base pleasure to revel in. those are
the people, as the passage suggests, who feel that they
don't deserve it. they drive me nuts, and sometimes cause
me to mistrust them because i wonder whether they are unsure
of the services or quality of service that they provide.

if you revel in the pleasure of money in the hopes that it
will replace your need ot create your own happiness then you
are reveling in something that truly has no value to you.
if you take pleasure in what your money represents then, in
my and ayn rand's opinion, you are seeking happiness in the
right aspect in "making money."