"Money Over Everything"

Written By: Sam Floyd

Search your iTunes for the number of songs that contain the word "money" in the title. Mine has 97. Today's hip-hop culture is all about getting more and more money (and wastefully throwing it up at the club, of course). But is money really the answer to all of our problems? Money comes, money goes... Ask MC Hammer.

"Money money money is my intuition, money over bitches such an easy decision..."

-Weezy F. Baby

Remember learning about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in psychology?

Well, to refresh your memory it's basically like a food pyramid that displays your needs instead of food. The most important/basic needs at the bottom, and the most unnecessary/advanced ones at the top.

The chart, in a nutshell, says that you can't worry about safety, love/belonging, esteem, or "self-actualization" respectively, until you first have your physiological situation (food, water, and shelter) under control. Pretty basic stuff.

You can see right away that money plays a pretty important role in our needs, seeing as food, water, and shelter are not free. If you're struggling to meet these most basic needs, then clearly money is gonna be of grand importance to you.

But...


At what point do you see money's ability to satisfy our needs stop? Safety. Leaving love/belonging, esteem, and most importantly, self-actualization up to be achieved through other means. A small percentage of people actually make it to the top of the pyramid because they spend way too much time worrying about MONEY. (Gotta get the dollas, baby!)

Now. Money is very important, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing that should be worried about. If you're worried about money, it should be because you don't have enough to put food on the table for your family, not because you're gonna have to settle for the Honda rather than the Beemer. In very basic terms, if one remains wrapped up in material things, one won't be able to reach his/her full potential as a human, according to Maslow. Put this on a large scale and there you have it: us (black people).

If your main focus is money (assuming you're already living comfortably), then you could potentially have pseudo-love, pseudo-esteem, and pseudo "self actualization" in your personal heiarchy of "needs". We all know that money can't buy you love. Any woman you get based on the things you buy her is not fit for a wife. Any friends who hang around you because of how much money you have are not friends at all. Any self-esteem you gain from having these "loved ones" has a foundation in relationships that are fostered by money, rather than genuine human emotion. Thus, any "self-actualization" that comes from this esteem is not "self-actualization" at all.

Don't get me wrong, money is definitely a must, and nothing is wrong with having plenty of it. But don't let your life revolve around getting money! When you get older and the opportunity presents itself, go to your little girl's ballet recital recital rather than working overtime if you can help it. The things in life that we value most are priceless. Money comes, money goes...

Some of the richest people in the world are also some of the most miserable. Realize money's importance, but at the same time realize it's unimportance...because money isn't everything. So why put it over everything?

...

Because we just wanna be "successful" of course. The money, cars, clothes, and hoes. You know the lyrics...