Money is paper. You can't take it with you to your grave and if you try, it won't do you a bit of good. To do so would be the epitome of greed. You can't buy someone's love with it, and if people pretend to love you for monetary gain, they're not the sort of people you would want around you anyway. With some folks, having money is a power surge and they lose any sort of sense, common or otherwise. And with some others, not having money will send them into desperate states when they begin to believe that the only light they see at the end of the tunnel is the train. My mother told me a story long ago. I've never forgotten it. It must have been very popular because I read it as recently as last week in a book written by Dr. Wayne Dyer, one of my favorite authors. The book is titled 'Excuses Begone!' I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did when my mother first told me and again when Dr. Dyer graced his book with it.

One day there lived an old lady in the forest. She lived in poverty and alone. Her husband had died years earlier and they had not been blessed with children. She loved to have her meager lunch by an old stream just behind the house her husband had built for them with his own two hands. She loved her little house. To her it was perfect. As she was about to bite into her slice of bread she looked down and in the stream she saw a bright, shiny object staring up at her. She leaned over and picked it up. As she held it in her hands, she realized she was holding a precious stone and she knew that if she cashed it in she would never again feel the pinch of poverty. She put it carefully in her bag. As she began to bite into her slice of bread along came a young man who looked very troubled. As he came closer to the old lady he told her he was very hungry and would she please give him her lunch. She turned to look at him, and said “Of course.” She then gave him her only piece of bread and he ate it in silence beside her. Her bag had been open all this time and the young man saw the shiny gem in her bag. He asked her if she would be willing to give him the shiny stone. She turned to look at him again and said, “Yes, you may have it.” The young man couldn’t believe his luck. She must be mad, he thought, to give him such a valuable stone. He was stunned. He would never again have to worry about money or where his next meal would come from. As he walked he was making all sorts of plans for the money. The next day the old lady went to her usual spot by the stream to eat her lunch. As she ate in silence, she looked up to see the young man walking towards her. He said to her, “I came to return this precious stone.” She looked at him with kind eyes and asked him why. He said that he didn’t want the stone and wanted to know if she would be willing to give him something else. She said to him, “but I have nothing else of value that I could possibly give you. What is it that you want?” He reached for her old wrinkled hand and said, “Please give me what you have inside of you that allowed you to give me the stone in the first place.”