Maxim Vlasov
Dear friends, dear readers! I invite you to discuss in this article what is, in my opinion, a very important and extremely interesting topic. This is a big money issue. Big money, as some people think, or even, probably, most people think so, is the kind of money that changes people mainly for the worse. And if something changes people, then it definitely has something to do with psychology. So I can't help but be interested in this question. Moreover, in my life, as probably in the lives of most of you, there were quite a few examples of how money spoiled people. However, observing these changes, I drew slightly different conclusions. I do not agree with the statement that money spoils people! I believe that on the contrary, people waste money! Therefore, I even signed the aphorism corresponding to my opinion to this article with my name, because I came up with it myself. And in this article I will show you, dear readers, and what will be necessary - I will prove exactly how, from my point of view, big money influences a person, and how a person influences money. I think this will help us understand ourselves and other people well, without testing ourselves and others with big money. After all, it will be better if you understand what kind of person you are before you have money than after. Because in the latter case, your changes, often for the worse, including for yourself, can become irreversible.
So what does money do to people when there is a lot of it? To do this, let's think about how a large amount of money differs from a small amount. It’s simple: a person with more money gets more opportunities, he can do more. But how he takes advantage of these opportunities depends on his personal qualities, which in turn were formed thanks to the culture in which the person grew up and lived. After all, you must admit that money, both large and small, can be managed in different ways. With their help, you can benefit yourself and others, or you can cause harm. Accordingly, with the help of small money you can cause minor harm to yourself and others, which is not as noticeable as larger harm that requires more resources. Well, let’s say a person enjoys smoking and drinking alcohol, thereby harming his body. Of course, this dubious pleasure can cost differently, but in any case it will bring harm to a person. And if a person has a lot of money, wouldn’t he want to try to give himself pleasure using other means, the same drugs, for example? And this is even more harm to his body. Or, if a person has a lot of money and has nothing to do, he can have fun in ways that are extremely dangerous for himself and other people, for example, racing cars, risking an accident. Now, if he didn’t have money, or rather, if he had little of it, he would be preoccupied with the issue of earning it, and so, having a lot of money, he is engaged in activities that are dangerous to his life, thereby showing his low level of cultural development and your misunderstanding of life.
On the other hand, if we talk about the benefits of money, both large and small, then the difference here will also be significant. Someone can help another person with a small amount of money to survive difficult times for him, and someone, having a lot of money, can build libraries, schools, hospitals, theaters and so on - thereby benefiting many people. Thus, the level of a person’s cultural development is visible by what he spends his money on - on cheap pleasure that is harmful to the body, or on means for self-development, on large yachts or on socially significant objects. In short, money, both big and small, is an opportunity for a person to show himself and others who he is.
Money does not spoil people, even if it is a lot of money - it only allows them to be themselves, they expose the insides of every person by allowing him to do much of what he could not or was afraid to do before. Of course, we can say that this is their role - to allow a person to reveal his worst qualities. But even if a person has a lot of money, their best qualities can be revealed, although only in a few. However, for some reason we do not say that big money and money in general make people better. Probably because this doesn't happen very often. It is worth noting that both bad and good qualities in a person can be revealed without money - for this you just need to create the appropriate conditions. For example, a person can be given power, which he can use, both for the benefit of others and for the detriment of them. Or a person may find himself in a difficult situation and show a very bad side of himself, simply not wanting to sacrifice something or bear responsibility for something. It’s not for nothing that they say that a friend is known in trouble, because trouble also exposes a person, just like a lot of money. Many people, faced with difficulties, problems, and responsibility, give in and behave extremely indecently. A very striking example is when a man leaves a woman with a small child, running away from difficulties, from responsibility, from hard work. So, as you can see, many things can change a person, both for the worse and for the better. Money is just one of the conditions under which a person can show himself from one side or another. And if we talk about money, then the lack of money, poverty, also has a very bad effect on people’s behavior, as well as on their lives. Poverty is a real punishment for the vast majority of people.
Let's now think about how people waste money. And they spoil them just like everything else they shift responsibility for their bad deeds and their bad behavior onto. People give money a very bad image by using it to cause more harm to each other than good. Although this statement can be argued, in order to understand what harm people cause to each other with the help of money, you need to compare this with the harm they cause to each other without money, that is, with the help of other means. However, many people manage a lot of money in such a way that it seems that there is more evil than good in money. But given the fact that money is just a tool that cannot do anything without human participation, it turns out that there is more evil in man than good. This is unpleasant to realize, you will agree. And maybe this is the wrong logic. I don’t want to think bad about people, or rather, I don’t want to see more bad than good in them. But given the way many people handle a lot of money, or a lot of power, for example, I can't help but think that many of them would benefit from being limited in what they can do to prevent them from harming themselves and others. Maybe this is why we live on a planet with limited, rather than infinite, resources, and are forced, although not always effectively, to limit ourselves in order to survive. After all, give a person everything he wants, and who knows what he will do. Therefore, I believe that big money is contraindicated for those who are not ripe for it. Just as some people should not be trusted with responsible work or should not be allowed to drive a vehicle under a certain age and without certain knowledge, so too much money should not be given to those people who are not able to manage it wisely. Likewise, people who are not wise enough should not be allowed to have too much power. Otherwise, we will get a “monkey with a grenade,” which will certainly cause a lot of harm to ourselves and others.
Meanwhile, the amount of money a person has can say a lot about him. But not all! For example, you don't have to be very smart to make a lot of money. To do this, it is enough to be very flexible in order to be able to adapt to the requirements that the system makes of a person and thus be beneficial to it. Then you can take a good, or as they say, “warm” place in the system and, thanks to it, live well. Well, someone even became rich thanks to other people, for example, his parents, who gave him everything. So if a person has a lot of money, then it is not at all necessary that he has any outstanding abilities. But this does not mean that he does not possess them. It happens differently in different cases. You need to look at the person himself - at his actions, judgments, actions in various situations in order to understand what he is like, and only then at the amount of money he has. Many people somehow forget about this, preferring to judge a person by superficial signs. That is why they are often mistaken in their conclusions. We can also say that a person who has little money is not necessarily stupid or lazy - it’s just that his value system may contradict the requirements that apply to a person who is successful in terms of making money. Let’s say, if for a woman her children are more important than her career, then it is quite obvious that she will devote most of her time to them, which means she will have much fewer opportunities to earn a lot of money than those women who completely devote themselves to work. At the same time, what is more important - children or money, every woman, as well as every man, decides for herself.
Thus, I believe that in order to prevent people from spoiling money, or, if you want, to prevent money from spoiling people, we should make people themselves better. Then no amount of money, even a lot of money, will become a means for a person to express the negative traits of his character. After all, a person can assert himself with the help of money in a completely socially acceptable way, in which the desire for more money forces a person to reveal his talents and do something useful for other people. In this state of affairs, big money will improve a person, not worsen him. And according to my theory, a person will create a good image for big money through his behavior. So I believe that it is necessary to improve the culture of people, and not only and not so much to fill their stomachs, in the broad sense of the word. After all, a person’s material well-being, without proper cultural education, will not make him better. Money in this sense plays an insignificant role. But cultural education is quite capable of improving every person, regardless of the quality of his life. Although, of course, you need to take care of both.
The main thing that we must understand is that we make ourselves and others the way we all are. If you make an overly practical materialist out of a person, forming in him an appropriate worldview and thus instilling in him a purely materialistic system of values, then for him the only good will be money, for which he will be ready to do anything. He will not care about his own children, his parents, his wife or husband, in general, about everyone - he will only be interested in money. And thus, with the help of appropriate education, or better yet, training, you will make a person into a biological automaton for making money, but you will kill in him a person who is capable of enjoying life itself, and not just money, including big ones. money. Such a person, of course, will behave with other people as if they were not people, but a source of material gain. This will not mean that he was born such a person, it means that he became such a person thanks to the corresponding culture. That is, there is no point in blaming money or anything else for the behavior of a person who, by nature, is not very correct with other people, and with a bad upbringing is even capable of very immoral acts. If we do not work properly with human material or work with it incorrectly, we get the corresponding “product”. I understand that the idea of making the world and people better is not new. And in general, it has been realized throughout the history of mankind. People, although not all of them, have worked and are working to improve themselves and others. This is done mainly by those who understand how important this work is. Without this work, we would have remained aggressive savages with a barbaric culture and a corresponding low quality of life.
But we must understand that human nature does not change, only the environment in which a person lives changes. Therefore, it is precisely this that we should take care of first of all, creating a culture that will contribute to the cultivation of worthy people who know how, in our case, to handle big money. So we should all remember this when we begin to shift responsibility from ourselves to money, talking about its negative impact on a person. After all, we cannot give up money, at least for now, and we don’t need to do this, because there will be no money, there will be something else that a person can use to splash out his negative personal qualities. But we are not only capable of changing ourselves and others, but I think it is necessary. While not all of us can make a significant contribution to global culture, we can all take proper care of the microculture in our own family.
When a person becomes better and learns to handle big money with dignity, and earn it in ways that are useful to society, then he will stop spoiling money with his bad behavior. He, on the contrary, will begin to glorify and exalt them as a very useful means of mutual exchange. And money itself, I repeat once again, does not change people, it only tears off their masks and exposes their nature. Therefore, when money is in bad hands it does bad things, and when it is in good hands it does good things.
For a comfortable life we always need money; we cannot live without it in our lives. All people strive for a good life and everyone dreams about it, and some succeed. As a result, they reach great heights and become great people. However, this does not benefit each of them, because, as we know, money tends to spoil people.
Does money spoil people?
If a person is kind and good by nature, then it will be difficult to spoil him even with a lot of money. Such people, having a good income, try to help other people and this, of course, deserves great respect. But, unfortunately, there are very few such people; basically everyone thinks only about themselves. And such people can also be understood, because they also did not get this wealth easily, they earned it with their own strength and intelligence, and are not obliged to help anyone. The desire to help people should come from the heart, and not through coercion or persuasion. On the portal http://icss.ru you can learn more about money, its properties and its use.
If a person was not the best even without money, then more money will make him even worse, since he will feel real power. And he will forget about all his positive qualities, because in fact he will no longer need them. He will no longer be able to hide his essence, he will not have to pretend, because with a lot of money he will already be able to buy himself everything he needs. For example, fake respect, fake friends, and also fake love. Of course, this won't make him truly happy and it will make him even angrier. He will not understand why he does not experience happiness, because he has everything for this. However, he will not have the most important thing, which is a sincere attitude towards himself from other people. This means that he will never become happy if he continues to assume that money can buy everything and everyone. We must remember that true sincere friendship and love cannot be bought even for a lot of money.
It is not without reason that people say that happiness does not lie in money at all, and in order to be truly happy you do not have to be rich financially. If a person has a family, real friends, a normal job, housing and is surrounded by sincere people, then he is already a real rich man. This is all you need for happiness, the main thing is to understand and learn to appreciate what you have. Of course, you won’t be able to live your life with dignity without any money, but it’s not necessary to have a huge amount of money either.
Wealth does not lie in money, but in the kindness of a person. If a person is kind, then he can have a lot of money; it will not spoil him in any way, he will not strive for power over people, he will help them, and evil people, unfortunately, are not capable of this.
These are not just bills, they are a tool for achieving some life goals. These are love, happiness, power, security, dependence, independence, control, freedom and much more. Money is such a comprehensive symbol, requiring a rational and balanced attitude, that it penetrates deep into the human psyche.
Majority men They treat money the way they would treat a person, showing deep emotions. Many men have a difficult relationship with money, and when they enter into a marital relationship, money issues become explosive. Other men do not have individual problems with money; Trouble starts after people enter into interpersonal relationships.
Men's attitude towards money
Attitude men for money really differs from the attitude towards money among women. One American company surveyed 400 men and 400 women of different ages and from different walks of life about their attitudes towards money, planning and financial advice. Research in this area has revealed a striking financial disparity between the two sexes.
1. Men are more confident, women are more cautious. 45% of men said they felt confident enough in their own judgment and did not need expert advice. Only 36% of women said the same. Maybe this means that men are simply better at financial management than women? Perhaps, if not for point two...
2. Men are more likely to make financial decisions they later regret. It seems that the stereotype of a risky man is not so far from the truth. The study found that across a range of financial products, from paychecks to quitting a job to pensions, men were at least twice as likely to make decisions they now regret, sometimes even greatly.
3. Women have a better idea of how much things cost. One reason for this more realistic view is that it is often the woman who manages the family budget. Men have a skewed perception of the real cost of living.
4. Women are more conscientious about taxes. Women are more likely to file more accurate tax returns than men. Perhaps women are more organized and forward-thinking, or they have a greater fear of being fined.
But the most important thing, what we not only think about, but what we are downright sure of, is this: we personally are absolutely worthy of possessing it and will be able to manage it perfectly well. And not a salary, you know, but that unimaginable amount that is usually called big money.
Is this possible?
Why not? From time to time, life gives us very eloquent examples. Every now and then we learn about people who are somehow lucky in this sense. Maybe they were born into a rich family and roll around like cheese in butter, taking money “in the nightstand.” Maybe they got an inheritance. Or maybe - and this, oddly enough, does happen - they won the lottery or in a casino.
Remember the Russian woman who hit the 30 million jackpot? The one who ended up drinking herself to death and died five years later, successively losing everything she had acquired? What about the family that won a TV show and literally a year later found itself on the verge of poverty? In fact, there are entire lists of unfortunate lucky people who were unable to cope with the sudden wealth that fell upon them. It is enough to “Google” the corresponding request - and you gasp, reading about the most ridiculous waste of fabulous sums, the stupidest extravagance and the extremely sad endings of initially fabulous stories.
However, living with a lot of money sometimes turns out to be difficult for people of a completely different type. To those who put them together through years of hard work. To those who saved and did not squander. Without exaggeration, the great Rockefeller, who eventually turned into a stingy knight, a miser, devoid of any human emotions. Or the no less great Henry Ford, who held his family in a terrible grip with his “money” fist - and raised alcoholic heirs who paid millions in compensation to numerous wives during divorce.
What can we say about the various majors, spoiled children or mistresses maddened by permissiveness, spending fabulous sums on one another’s riskier entertainment? Children in expensive cars, organizing dangerous races around the city, jaded wives, hooked on drugs and casinos, socialites, with parodic chic, lighting up a hundred dollar bill, or divorced socialites, dying in poverty, robbed by random swindlers...
We've all seen this - and we've all wondered: why exactly do they spend money this way? Why not charity, not medicines or devices for sick people, not hospice patronage? Why, in the end, not study, not an ambitious project, not investing in scientific research? Why do they get rid of money so ridiculously, stupidly and contemptuously? So... as if they don’t love them, but hate them? And why does the money go to them?
And really, why?
But because money is generally a universal litmus test. There are few things that reveal the essence of a person like this. Few things have such a powerful tempting charge.
In fact, psychologists identify four types of people who attract big money. There is even such a concept as “financial temperament”. According to him there are:
- thrifty magnets. They are endowed with fantastic determination, get everything they want, and then successfully maintain and increase what they receive;
- spender magnets. Their financial stability is the tightrope on which they balance. They spend selflessly, but are too deluded by the fact that their income will not become scarce. In crisis situations, they lose on all counts, self-confidently refusing to “tighten their belt”;
- thrifty "repellents". Yes, yes, exactly “repellents” in the very meaning of the word. Those who attract repels. In pursuit of wealth, they condemn themselves to exhausting work and fight like fish against ice. Money comes to them with difficulty, but goes away easily, like falling into a barrel. They are unable to cope with the energy of wealth;
- "repellents" are wasteful. Natural spendthrifts, constantly faced with financial gaps. It happens that they work a lot, but they often look for money in other ways - gambling, debts, lotteries.
Why are they all the way they are? First of all, because they combine learned family models with personal characteristics in relation to money. Where does this money come from? When we talk about really large sums, there are usually three sources: business; random money (winning or unexpected inheritance); expected inheritance (in the first or later generation). And each option carries its own risks.
For example, if a person in the first generation receives an inheritance, then he simply has not yet developed models of a money management culture, and it’s easy to waste it. If the heirs are already in the next generations and there are several of them, then internal jealous intrigues are easily possible, combined with the conviction of one’s right to what has not been earned.
Random money often produces a shock effect from the delight of unexpected possession. But, not paid for by their own labor, they easily descend.
As for the money received by one’s own hard work and work on one’s own business, it is easy for a person who has become rich to succumb to the temptation of pride and begin to treat it as an instrument of powerful change in the world.
In general, everyone has the risk of somehow coming into conflict with their own big money, no matter how they receive it. And this, I must say, has a great effect on character and life.
So what could happen?
Big money can turn a person into a loner: he begins to suspect everyone around him of trying to use and steal from him and builds a distance. There is a stunning old fairy tale on this topic, “Frozen,” about how a good hero who has become rich consistently deprives himself of love and friendship, not wanting to share with anyone or help anyone.
However, the opposite case also happens: when a person experiences an exaggerated sense of guilt and shame in front of those who are not so lucky and those who skillfully manipulate him. As a result, it becomes overgrown with bloodsuckers and swindlers, who successfully milk it to the last. He makes many best friends and advisers - exactly until the minute he still has the money.
On the other hand, a person who has become rich is an excellent target for all sorts of addictions, increasingly expensive and increasingly less healthy. Expensive alcohol is still alcohol, let alone drugs or purchased sex. At the same time, the sensations sooner or later become dull, which means you need to try ever larger doses of ever more exciting hobbies. Actually, this is where monstrous adrenaline games come from, examples of which I don’t even want to give.
At the same time, a person begins to have serious problems with the ability to empathize. Big money enslaves, but it seems to him that he is their king and “mistress of the sea.” No matter how this money is obtained, the feeling of being chosen and entitled makes the owner look down on others - pathetic, poor losers - and deep down consider them second-class citizens. "It's nothing personal, it's business." “Why on earth should parasites be encouraged?” “You can’t help everyone.” Who among us has not heard this?
Well, let this rich man not want to help anyone, but only want to please his beloved self. But bad luck, he certainly also has trouble with his imagination. What to spend it on? Before him is a set of stereotypes ranging from The Great Gatsby to the Kardashians. He saw in movies and glossy magazines how to spend money and enjoy life (because money is for pleasure, he read somewhere recently). And it begins. At home. Car park. Yachts-planes. Endless, at first intoxicated, and then even some kind of dreary consumerism. And nothing more.
In general, the picture is disappointing. Inability to handle money, lack of practice, examples and habits, inability to generally think in terms of financial stability and high income are bad helpers. This is what the saying goes, “not the horse’s feed.”
So, maybe, well, there are none at all?
If you don’t feel sufficiently confident in yourself, then maybe it’s really “well them”? In the end, we dream of a magic wand, but all of the above describes rather a millstone around our neck. And it sounds kind of hopeless. But, fortunately, we have other examples before our eyes. There is Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, who spend large sums on charity. There is a whole constellation of wealthy heiresses - from the daughter of the oligarch Vanisha Mittal to the daughter of the New York mayor Georgina Bloomberg - working with full dedication and ignoring the traditional temptations of the golden youth. There are also lesser-known people, our humble compatriots, who regularly pay their “tithe” and give substantial sums to help others. People who were lucky and who skillfully used their luck.
This means that everything is not so hopeless. Wanting more money is perfectly acceptable. But it is worth, nevertheless, dreaming about them, dreaming about wisdom, maturity and accurate calculation. It also makes sense to slowly train with the money that is already available. We already talked about this once and studied the rules of wealthy, successful people. So let’s remind ourselves of them, and if wealth really comes rolling in, we’ll just scale up the process. You know this expression: if you can lead three people, you can lead three thousand. Something similar happens with money.
I’m not a big proponent of bringing the inanimate to life, but I have long been convinced that money really has energy. The question is: how to deal with it, how to control it and how to direct it in the right direction? Money can reward and it can punish. They can bring happiness and misfortune. They can be reliable friends and treacherous enemies. The main thing is to know what to expect from them.
Does money spoil people? How do you think? I get asked this question quite often, and today I decided to write a separate short article that will answer it. After reading it, you will find out my opinion about whether money spoils a person and why. I would like to emphasize that this is just my opinion, which I will try to argue well, but whether to agree with it or not is up to each reader.
So, quite often I hear and read various people who claim that money spoils a person. Moreover, their statements are not unfounded - they immediately give examples. Most often, these examples involve, say, some rich officials, or their children, who create all sorts of chaos, feeling their impunity, since they have power, connections, and most importantly, money. Everything has its price, everything can be bought off - that’s what they think. And in practice, as a rule, this is what happens: they pay off. Alas, our society, our law enforcement and judicial systems are structured this way. This gives the impression that money spoils people. After all, if they didn’t have money, they wouldn’t be able to pay off, and they wouldn’t be so openly outrageous, they would think more about their actions.
Other supporters of the opinion that money spoils a person cite the example of businessmen who “rose” from the bottom to a certain level. So, they say, until he had no money, he was a normal person, but now he felt that he could do anything, and he became spoiled. For example, he bullies his employees or something like that.
And the more money a person has, the more they spoil him: many people think so. I allow myself to disagree with this, and now I will explain my position.
First of all, not all examples of people who acquired money are negative. You can also find many opposite, positive examples, when successful and wealthy businessmen, for example, are actively engaged, value, respect and encourage their employees, and they respond to them with their loyalty. Are there such examples? There are plenty of them too.
From this we can conclude that it is not money that spoils a person, but something else. What is this? And the answer here is very simple. These are the manifestations of negative personal qualities, what is initially inside these people.
Then another question: why didn’t these personal qualities manifest themselves when a person had no money? Everything is simple here too.
All people have certain qualities: both good and bad. The set of qualities is individual for each person, and they exist in a certain balance: a person tries to demonstrate the good ones, and suppresses the bad ones.
But when a certain, let’s say, catalyst appears, people can fully discover those negative qualities that they had previously tried to suppress in themselves. By the way, positive ones too, we’re just not talking about them now. And one of these catalysts is money: a person feels more opportunities, and therefore suppresses his negative personal qualities less.
But one cannot say that money spoils people. People are spoiled by their own qualities, and money is simply a catalyst through which these qualities begin to clearly manifest themselves. And, I emphasize, far from the only one! For example, power, holding a certain position, or generally getting into any situation can serve as such a catalyst. This is just an incentive, an impetus for the manifestation of one’s negative qualities: if they exist, they will still “pop up” sooner or later: not from money, but from something else.
Therefore, one should not assume that money is an evil that spoils people: people are spoiled by the people themselves, by what is inside them. I have said many times, and I will repeat it again, that money is a tool with which you can create a masterpiece, or you can cripple and even kill yourself and other people. Take for example any “dangerous” tool that you understand, for example, a knife or an ax: the same thing, it all depends on how to control it and what to do with it.
So, the general conclusion. Money doesn't spoil people. Money will not spoil a good person, but a bad person will still be “spoiled” by something else, even if it is not money. It's all about the set of personal qualities that are inherent in a person, and how and under what circumstances he shows these qualities.
Therefore, you should never be afraid of money, thinking that it will bring you something bad, that it will spoil you. You need to be afraid of your negative qualities: you need to fight them, and try to suppress them in yourself, while developing positive personal qualities.
This is how the article turned out, and I hope that you will extract the necessary moral from it. If you disagree with something, you can always express your opinion in the comments: other readers will be interested.
I say goodbye to you, I wish you enough money that would not spoil you, but only help, serve as a tool for you that brings benefit and not harm. See you again at !
