Looking back at my K-12 education, I find there are significant gaps in it. School never taught me how to be a good spouse; how to be an effective parent; how to maximize my health (wellness); how to design and create the life of my dreams; how to live purposefully; and how to make and manage money. The latter is what I want to address today.

During my childhood, we never had an abundance of money, so I never learned to imitate parental management of it.  More subtle, and perhaps more harmful, was an unspoken value which left me believing that making money (or having a lot of it) was somehow not right. Poverty was never considered a virtue.But having more money than we could use was "the root of all evil." I was an adult before I realized the actual proverb was, "The love of money is the root of all evil." Somehow, I had to separate loving money from having it.

Arguments over money matters are a common cause of divorce.People fight over money, or the lack of it, or how to spend it, or how to acquire it.Although the real causes of relationship conflicts are usually something else, more upsets, emotional upheaval, and resentments center around money than you can ever imagine. The money issue is often only the battle-ground upon which an ongoing war takes place.

Certainly, most of us are aware of the causal connection between poverty and mental illness, discrimination, social isolation, hunger, prejudice, and even injustice.  Until we, as a society, practice effective ways to overcome poverty, inequality and its negative consequences will remain.

In our culture, the reigning belief is that the only purpose for making or having money is to spend it.Economic downturns are often blamed on "lack of consumer confidence..." In other words, we aren't spending enough money. We want more money, because we want more of the material things money can be turned into.

Rarely do we see the primary purpose of acquiring money to be to make it reproduce itself. We've all heard the phrase, "It takes money to make money."How many of us really believe that?We more often believe that "working longer and harder" is what it takes to make more money.

Much of our economic health is based on debt. Calling it "credit" is really a misnomer."Increasing your debt load" is more accurate. And saving money prior to purchasing what we want seems to be as outmoded as the dial telephone.

Money is a lot like food, except you can't really eat it.You can't sleep with it.It is not valuable in and of itself, unless you do something with it.Money obeys our choices and decisions just like food does.Food and money are both potential energy.You control its use and its flow.The value we place on food usually depends on our choices.Interesting...money is totally dependent upon the value we collectively place on it.The value we place on money is always a matter of choice.

All the money that anyone ever receives comes from other people who hold a similar value system.All the money anyone ever spends goes to other people who believe it to be of value.Money is a very pervasive substance, involved in every relationship we have. The exchange of money is an extremely common phenomenon.

Some people use money to manipulate others. Some use it to control others. Some use it to comfort themselves. Some feel obligated to give money back when they receive it. Some acquire more and more money based upon their own insecurity or fundamental greed. Some people use money as a form of protection from some financial disaster.

Some want money to inflate their own egos.

The use of money matters. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at our public education and begin to fill the gap in our education that is created by a lack of awareness about money matters.