Opinion: It is not how much wealth we manage to amass. It’s how we choose to use it
I have had the privilege of studying and teaching the Hebrew Bible to a local investment broker. He is a Christian and has a deep spiritual commitment to ethics and religious values as well as providing investors with faithful and truthful counsel as they manage their portfolios in such unpredictable times.
For the last year, we have been studying the Book of Ecclesiastes, which belongs to the third section of the Hebrew Bible called “Writings.” It is a book, according to Bible scholars, of relatively late authorship although, Jewish tradition said that Solomon wrote the book during his later years when he had the most pragmatic knowledge and wisdom about a life well lived.
I have learned quite a bit from my friend about how brokers not only help their clients increase their holdings but also work hard to help clients hold onto their assets. Yet there is another aspect of investing that brings our values and priorities in life to the surface when people allocate their assets to their loved ones.
Of course we as investors all want to earn dividends and increase our personal wealth, but, how important is the acquisition of that wealth to determining who we are as human beings?
Ecclesiastes or Kohelet talks extensively about life priorities and reminds us that he was wealthy and prominent in his time. At the same time, Ecclesiastes teaches that all is vanity, including being obsessed with wealth, too. He has been to the top and enjoyed the acclamation from his community of being an important and respected person. Yet, that alone does not, in the end, fulfill him. Financial wealth is not enough to define him and to satisfy his life’s goals any more.
“There is a man alone, without a companion; he neither has son nor brother; yet there is no end of all his labor; nor is his eye satisfied with riches. He may say, For whom do I labor, and bereave my soul of good? This also is vanity, indeed it is a bad business.”
Is this a time to reassess what really matters and what we truly value?
Ecclesiastes challenges us by asking;: “How much money is enough to define our success?” This is particularly relevant as a contrast to these days, when elected officials are fighting over a supplemental stimulus package to assist those of our fellow citizens who do not have the problems that many of us with greater resources have in protecting and growing our financial portfolios.
Maybe this is a time to reprioritize what wealth means to us?
Ecclesiastes said; “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him” Is his message to us today the same as in ancient times, which is that wealth is a fleeting thing and that at the end of the day we cannot take it with us?
It may sound like an ominous message but think about it from another angle. Rich or poor is not the issue. It is, rather, being a righteous person and making a difference in people’s lives. That is what really determines the value of our labor.
Ecclesiastes has a lot of wisdom to convey to rich and poor alike.
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.”
Do we as society need a stronger dose of humility to not forget that life is unpredictable? How fast we can rise and fall is certainly a lesson of our times.
His message is not to fool ourselves by believing that acquiring wealth at all costs makes us successful.
Ecclesiastes would love to critique those famous words in the Oliver Stone movie “Wall Street” when the Michael Douglas character Gordon Gekko famously said to his investors “Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge- has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
I am afraid this ethos has more sway over our society than Ecclesiastes, who taught us a very different lesson and one that reminds us that “vanity of vanity all is vanity.”
Use the wealth we have for the betterment of the world.
How we acquire wealth matters but letting it define us misses the point altogether.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 1:17 PM.