Money and the Meaning of Life

November 12, 1996

Dear friend:

I haven't written in a while. The fact is that I have been very busy. Very happily busy.

Part of the happiness of the busy-ness is that I spent six weeks in late summer and early fall in Monterrey, Mexico. I have the good fortune of teaching in a Graduate School of Business Leadership named simply DUXX (Latin for leader.)

I was invited to join the faculty by my good friend, Karl Scheibe, who is a professor of psychology at Wesleyan and has a clinical practice in Old Saybrook.

In addition to our teaching, once a year we meet with the rest of the faculty who have been gathered from the leading colleges and graduate schools in Latin American, Europe and the United States.

It was at that meeting in late August that I met a man whose writing had become important to me in my work. His name is Jacob Needleman and the book that is most helpful is called Money and the Meaning of Life. I highly recommend it to you.

Let me share just one remarkable insight.

Jacob cites a section in the book of Ecclesiastes:

What profit hath man of all his labor wherein he laboreth under the sun?

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

I can remember reading that text in college. I was puzzled by it. I think those words were put to music by Bob Dylan; even hearing them sung left me perplexed. Why is there so much despair, so much emptiness, so much vanity?

Professor Needleman helped me with my confusion. He does so by pointing to the words….under the sun.

And he says that human beings have the capacity to realize that life has two levels - under the sun and over the sun.

The real challenge of life is to live in both realms, mediating the wisdom and energy of one to the other.

Money, he reasons, is too often seen only as having significance "under the sun." Therefore, money, even lots of it, fails to bring happiness or fulfillment.

Money, like everything else that is connected with human endeavor, should be understood as under the sun and over the sun.

When I read these thoughts, my mind jumped not to individuals I have known who have used money to bring meaning to life - but to some of our clients.

This may seem strange because we all know that most businesses see that their only goal is to make money for the owners. But some of our most successful clients - and I mean "successful" in the sense that they make lots of money - clearly (though often unconsciously) use the financial strength to add value and meaning to the lives of their employees, to their communities, and to society at large.

For them, their labor is not striving after wind. For them, all is not vanity. For them, money - even a lot of money - can bring meaning.

Sincerely,

Bill