Giving money a higher priority than others can create hardship, dependency and marginalization

Let's immediately dispel a thought, that the article can support an approach to a Franciscan life, made up of sacrifices and poverty, with the intention of pinning the hopes, legitimate in any case, of every individual who seeks a balance in his life in economic tranquility. No, this is not the intention.

I would instead like to talk about when an excessively privileged role is attributed to money, setting one's life in the spasmodic pursuit of that well-being, idealized , which continually puts people's physical and intellectual resources into motion.

Money is a fundamental necessity for our existence, it is used to eat, to enjoy a home, to be able to have a family , support children, afford leisure and improve our old age.

That's why we spend a third or more of our days, every month for every working year, to earn money, and it is obvious that this great effort, for so much time in our lives, give money an important, laboriously important weight.

Spend it without prudence, even if we were well-off, would be a questionable approach, only for the fact that, in normal and honest situations, the money that has been earned has been exchanged for one's time, a part of one's life that can no longer be bought or recovered.

An economic availability helps to feel better, to help others and look at the future with more optimism and serenity.

But we should see it as a piece, a gear, a tooth of the wheel that must turn along with many others, to ensure that the life machine moves correctly and does not crash.

The teeth of the wheel of life are also made up of health, emotional relationships, local roots, social relationships and for those who believe, by faith.

Everyone balances these ingredients as they believe, trying to maintain a certain balance based on their character, their inclination, their situation relationships and your expectations.

However, when one of these weights, such as money, is given too much importance, like communicating vessels all the others decrease in value , putting your inner, psychological and emotional balance at risk.

Being obsessed with the value of money and its availability in one's life means demonizing it, creating situations in which one is inclined not to spend it , except for mandatory things, having the repulsion and fear of using it.

In a social life this attitude can be noticed through easily identifiable behaviors, such as wearing worn clothes, pretending at the bar with friends not having a wallet in order not to pay, using other people's cars when possible, sticking to the division of expenses when in company to pay as little as possible, never buying a book or a newspaper or going to the cinema or a museum , try to take the holidays on the backs of others, and so we could tell a thousand more of these situations.

Those who live this relationship with money try to prevent situations that could lead them to pay for something avoidable, according to them, therefore they select their own sociability by reducing meetings with friends and relatives, starting a self-marginalization to avoid any contact with money.

Year after year, the centrality of the problem leads him to not enjoy his life, with the awareness of being on the side of right, but pushing him to forget that the purpose of one's existence is not to have money in the drawer, but to experience the emotions that life can offer us.

The past time locked up in itself is an irretrievably lost time, made up of anguish and insignificance, which could resurface in old age, with all the remorse that will come to mind.

The interest in money must therefore be counterbalanced with the interest in everything positive life can give us and, without sharing one's existence with the life opportunities account will probably never come back.

Don't get confused between cost of living and value of living.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.