Arthur Krystal, Robert Reich And A Personl Look At The Importance Of Money

New car: $30,000. In ground pool for the kids: $20,000. New diamond ring for 25th anniversary: $4,000. Earning the money you spend honestly and through an enjoyable career: Priceless. When asked to define success, many people’s answers include the word “money”. Money is only a piece of paper that has been given “value” in order to trade it for something of equal “value”. So why does money define a person’s success or worth? Shouldn’t success be defined by personal achievements or at least sincere attempts? Why do we as a society allow others to judge our bank account as a direct connection to our success? People do need money, no argument there. We need it to survive and we need it to live in comfort, which it is safe to say, is a desire of all people. If you earn your money honestly, it should not matter what you spend it on to make you happyвЂ"as long as your purchases are needed or will bring genuine joy to you or those you love and not just give you a higher social status.

“Some scholars have pointed [money’s] role as an incentive, insofar as people want money in order to trade it for prized goods or services. Others, however, have deplored money for undermining interpersonal harmony.” (Vohs 1154). Of course we work in order to make money. However, money should not be made just for the fact of making it. Vohs’s article notes that money makes people feel self-sufficient and independent of needing help from others (1154). This self-sufficient feeling spurring from money is an outcome of society’s definition characterization of success.

Arthur Krystal’s article Who Speaks for the Lazy? has many references to the way today’s society defines success in terms of money and career. In the very first sentence, he implies that success seems to be less attainable without a college degreeвЂ"which leads to a career, which leads to money, which leads to “success”вЂ"success of course being that correlation between the checking account balance and “worth”. In Robert Reich’s piece Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor Are Getting Poorer, he notes how workers with college degrees are taking over union memberships. Unions are “pyramid-like organizations” (Reich 259) in which power follows succession within a corporation. In the 1950s those without a college degree held 50 percent of union membership. By the late 1980s, those holding a union membership without a college degree had decrease by about 30 percent. Although college is important, the truth isвЂ"it is not for everyone. If a person has sufficient talent to have a career without a college degree, they should not feel pressure to follow the “twelve-step program” Arthur Krystal speaks of in his article (759). Working hard and sticking to a plan helps some, if not most, people achieve a goal, but for others a different path may be more appropriate.

“Not making a lot of money says something about a man in a society where financial success is equated with acumen, resourcefulness, and social standing.” (Krystal 759). Krystal points out that those that are not rich are thought to have the lack of ability to make money (Krystal 759). Who made up this rubric of no money equals no talent, skill, or worth? Just because you do not practice your abilities, does not mean you have none. This is where one of Krystal’s possible definitions of lazy comes inвЂ"“Profound laziness is not so much about doing nothing as it is about the strain of doing practically anything” (Krystal 763). So laziness is not just sitting on the couch all day; that is why plenty of lazy people are wealthy. These lazy people do leave the house and go to work; they just loathe every minute of it and talk their way out of many laborious situations. Plenty of hard workers are not wealthy according to common standards. Laziness is definitely on the opposite end of success for most people, because of the notion that successful people are always doing things to build their success. If you are lazy, does that mean you are not successful? It depends on what your definition of success is. I believe as long as these people are fulfilling their own definition of successвЂ"that should be all that matters. We as a society have been taught if you can only stick to it and constantly search for our own way to “make it”, we will in fact become successful. “Despite consumerism, it would be a mistake to read success as a synonym for money. Although the two often go hand in hand, money itself cannot make you a success, and vice-versa.” (Bhattacharya 3). Although many peopleвЂ"consciously or notвЂ"would not find this statement true, I agree with it. Money is, once again, only a piece of paper.

There is another implication about this “success” we have come to define from the amount of money we make. That implication is happiness. If the thought of possessing money fills you with joy, you need to reassess your priorities. Yes,