As stated in my About page, I’m currently a student. I’ve studied both engineering, as well as business (not at the same time… masochism isn’t my thing).
Lately I’ve been thinking about some of the personal changes I have gone through in the past year or so (about the time I started going to business school). I thought about how much more efficient I’ve become, how through refocusing my education I became a more studious individual, and just how fixated on money and luxurious objects I had become.
That isn’t to say that I had been devoid of greed prior to my change of major. In fact, some may have asserted I was fixated on money from a young age. However, it was different being in the business school.
Rather than writing around in circles for a few more paragraphs to fill up the page, building up the tension leading up to the grand reveal of the exact, singular reason I think studying business made me greedy, I’ll just type it out somewhere between 20 to 300 times:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
All of my classes focus(ed) on money. There was no “let’s do this theoretically” or “can you tell us why Enron failed?” (I hate that last question, by the way. So tiresome) it was and is all very focused on money. From my intro ECON classes to my statistics course, there was rarely five minute span where I didn’t see a god damn dollar sign on the board. Do you know just how annoying it is. To see the same symbol. Over. And over. AND OVER?! I mean at first it was fine, but for such a heavy focus on a glorified S with a line going through it vertically, it was ridiculous.
It wasn’t even a subliminal focus where the dollars would just show up, there was an emphasis on the money.
Thinking about it now reminds me of the Serious Person archetype outlined in Beauvoir in The Ethics of Ambiguity. My instructors, as well as my peers, placed such a heavy and deep meaning on money, while there was no inherent meaning there.
I’ve heard the sentiment that “money isn’t everything”, as well as the extended version “money isn’t everything, but it is important” many times before. I would like to add on an extension to the extended version– money isn’t everything, but it is important if people give meaning to it. And that isn’t a sanctimonious attempt at telling people to, y’know, “spend it wisely” or “give it to people who need it”. It is literally what it is. Money is completely worthless unless society collectively agrees that it has value. People could be buying goods with owl pellets 30 years from now, if the right amount of people decide to use that as a currency.
Why owl pellets? I really don’t know. I’m kind of digging the idea though.
Me: “How much this sandwich?”
Cashier person: “9 owl pellets, please!”
*Finds a piece of shit on the floor*
Me: “Hey look! A penny!”
Back to Beauvoir though. The serious person archetype, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a person who finds refuge in the “serious world” which he/she finds value in but then forgets that all the value they have taken refuge in (whether that be a job, a community, etc.) was only given value because they gave it value… I just confused myself. Let me try again.
The serious person places value in some external object, like his/her job, and then depends all of his/her own personal value/purpose/meaning on that object. The serious person then forgets that their object of choice was only given value because the person, him/herself, gave that object value.
Let me just illustrate it to better explain the idea.
Here we see a person and an object. The object has no value, as you can see. The object can be pretty much anything. Literally anything. Anything.
The valueless object now has been given value. This, in turn, causes the object to give the purpose a sense of meaning or purpose.
If for any reason the object is lost (say the object was a job and it no longer exists because the company went out of business), there is then no meaning or purpose being fed back into the person. The serious person forgets that all of value being fed into the object and then back out to the person was a result of his/her placing value on that object in the first place.
This concept reminded me heavily of my experiences in business school, studying money so intensely and forgetting that money is just a means of achieving something else. Money is a means, not an end.
What is the purpose of money, after all, if not to be able to spend it and purchase other things? And why is money used? Because people place value on currency. And why is value placed on currency? Probably because it’d be easier than bartering with other objects. Also, what if I wanted a gallon of milk and all I had was a goat? I can’t divide up my goat and still have a pet goat! What if I want both the milk and the goat? Please don’t make me milk my goat 😦
Truth be told, I don’t even have a goat. Now I kind of want one, though.
It was this general fixation on money by my instructors and peers that led me to become a greedier person.
“How do we maximize profits and minimize loss?”
“Money we have now is worth more than money we get later”
“Taxes are bad”
“The earlier the investment, the greater the yield in the future”
“Etc.”
After hearing these recurring sentiments enough times, money was almost all I could think about. Whenever I was faced with a situation in which I would have to spend money, I would consider how it would benefit me, or if it would at all.
I was focused on how much cash I could amass in my savings account, forgetting that there’s no point to having money other than spending it.
Don’t get me wrong, saving up for future expenditures is a solid plan… The only issue was that I didn’t have a plan for said future expenditures. It was like buying gallons/liters of gasoline without a destination in mind… Or even a car, for that matter.
I’m not saying that all business students/people are greedy. I’m just saying that it’s very difficult not to succumb to greed and selfishness when dwelling in the realm of business.
The Verbose Vomiteer 