Safely Prosperous or Really Rich: Choosing Your Personal Financial Heaven

Chapter 2

Worshipping Mammon

The bad trade-offs of loving money more than God, family or country, and how to avoid them. How to have both money and true happiness.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Not money, but the love of money. It is the archetypal two-edged sword; even if putting a misplaced love of money ahead of more important things often does lead to monetary wealth, it too often leads to misery.

The older I get, the less important getting rich seems to me, and the more intrigued I have become with studying the impact of money on character and true happiness. In fact, concern over the possible negative effects of the quest for financial security and wealth on the human psyche kept me from writing about how to become Really Rich until I sorted through the effects of the quest for money on me and my family. I finally decided I was not morally at ease with sharing what I have learned about the principles of wealth acquisition if I didn't share with you up front what I have experienced for myself and learned from others about the spiritual and emotional potholes along the road to wealth.

I have concluded that happiness is the real object and purpose of our existence, and the quest for riches and the sheer fact of the existence of excess money can either enhance or destroy it. That is a fact of life, and I have never read anything about what wealth can do for you and to you, so I decided to fill that void.

Those who are champing at the ...