“The Greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Charles Beaudilaire

This also became the catch-phrase in the popular 1995 cult film, The Usual Suspects starring Stephen Baldwin among others.

That quote is just as applicable to the love of money. So easy to spot in someone else but almost impossible to detect in one’s own heart.

It’s easy to point out the love of money in the entrepreneur. One who embarks on the journey in search of financial freedom. When a person begins investing and actively accumulating wealth in the form of assets they must love money, right?

Most people do not spend their lives building up an investment portfolio. Most of us simply climb on the hamster wheel each day and go to work.

We buy a house because this is a sensible investment and we work hard to pay off the mortgage. We trade up as our family (and our income) expands and move into a bigger home, buy a newer car, climbing the corporate ladder and piling money into our pension fund so that someday we can retire.

We enjoy the luxury of living in a home we can barely afford and revel in the security of a job that pays the mortgage even when we take our annual vacation or when we occasionally fall ill. We cross our fingers and hope that the money we pay into the pension fund each month will sustain us in our retirement.

All the while, we run up our credit card debt, acquiring new furniture, new computers and mobile phones for the kids. Or paying for our annual vacation, knowing that our next promotion or increase will cover these expenses in due course. When all else fails, we take our bank manager’s advice and consolidate our credit card debt into the mortgage. This reduces the monthly interest – and frees us up to reach into our wallet for the credit card once more to buy life’s next essential product.

We daren’t quit our job as this will bring the entire edifice crashing down and we daren’t leave work early to watch the kids’ school play or baseball match as this might cost us that promotion we so desperately need to keep the all the plates spinning. All to ensure that nobody ever sees how precarious our financial situation has become.

Of course, this seems less like a love of money than, say, building an investment portfolio worth a million dollars. Probably because it’s so normal. After all, most of our peers are in the same boat. How could it be wrong?

The truth is, this desperate need for job security is little more than fear of loss and the obsessive focus on consumer spending is little more than greed or desire for material gain. This is the love of money in its stealthiest form. Nobody plans for this life. None of us pictured this as living the dream back in our twenties. 

Rather, we started out with far nobler intentions. Then life happened and a series of rather sensible choices over time landed us in the predicament in which we now find ourselves. The love of money that once promised instant gratification has instead delivered a twisted form of serfdom in which we are little more than wage-slaves treading a hamster wheel from which there seems to be no escape.

Yet, when we examine our own hearts, what do we see?

We are not out buying private yachts. Instead, we are struggling to keep our heads above water.

Far from lusting after riches, we are barely able to make ends meet.

Chasing after wealth? You’re kidding! We are fighting for survival.

We hear a sermon about the love of money. We look around and see it everywhere. The rich and famous, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the list goes on. Finally, we turn our attention inwards, seeking out the love of money our own hearts. And like that… it’s gone!

3 thoughts on “The Devil’s Greatest Trick

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