A student's view of money

by 1:22 PM 0 comments
One of my newspaper students (that I actually use as my graphics kid for all of my journalism classes) writes rants very well. In fact, he is a very well-spoken student, but is in the mold of the "socially awkward" (even though I completely disagree).

This is the kid that will rule the world someday. I'm deciding though if this is too much for our school paper - I'm leaning towards putting it in. Let me know what you think in the comments:


"Keep going to school, you will make more money that way. Now go to college, you will make more money that way. No, don’t choose that major, you will make more money this way. No, do not practice that hobby, you will make more money if you spend your time this way.

Throughout our lives, the concept of money is reinforced. Although this .3 millimeter width piece of stationary contains no inherent value, it has the majority of the earth’s population groveling for more.

If, on the off chance you are one of the minuscule that don’t care about money, well, don’t worry, you will grow out of it. More important things will take hold of you; money. It’s naive to dream, to not desire for a larger cash flow. It is noble to choose that $80,000 a year instead of happiness.

This. This is the truest form of selling yourself out; thinking that your entire worth sums up to the amount one contains in the bank. We, as humans, are much more than a stack of bank notes. Our intrinsic value outweighs that of any gold or platinum. Society demoralizes those who are in the process of attempting greatness, yet praises to the highest end, those who have already achieved it. You either are a slacker that dropped out of college to work in his parents garage on some mindless project, or a successful billionaire who was brave enough to try and create his own destiny. The only difference between these two, is not how they started, not the level of their passion, not the hours spent dreaming; but how many green rectangles of paper they obtained along the way.

What is truly valiant, what should truly be praised, is not how much you can sell the hours of your life for. Sitting in an office for $25 an hour, waiting for that Christmas bonus, so that they can have one week of true life a year. The characteristic that needs to be valued beyond any other… Well, that’s just it. There isn’t one single characteristic. Each and every person knows what that characteristic is within themselves. However when we look upon others, we need a quick way to assess successfulness in others. For this answer, we looked towards credit cards, towards the square footage in someones home or loft, we look towards the amount someone is wearing.

We need a new way to assess another person’s value, society needs to reevaluate it’s standards for measuring, a way that isn’t socioeconomic status. Look upon their smile, look at how they carry themselves, the people they surround themselves with, their contentment with their own lives.

If you aren’t building your own dream, you are helping build someone else’s. Society needs to nurture children to create their own dreams, not just dream them. We teach children to dream when they are young, but when they grow up, we teach them how to fall into the cogs of society. There is such an immense double standard when it comes to self success."

Lindquist

Author

I do a lot of things. The best thing I do is fathering (I think). I'm the ol' "Jack of all trades, Master of none." I teach aspiring journalists. I run. I play guitar(s). I also host a running podcast. Oh, and I dabble in drawing. And I dabble in authoring... children's books no less. I just dabble. Sometimes I ramble.

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