I rewatched Risky Business the other night, and two quotes really stuck with me. One was Joel Goodson (played by Tom Cruise) asking his college-bound friends, “Doesn’t anyone want to accomplish anything, or do we just wanna make money?” to which they all answered, “Make money.” The other was at the very end, in which Joel recaps the movie saying, “My name is Joel Goodson. I deal in human fulfillment. I grossed over 8 thousand dollars in one night.” 

Of all his friends, Joel was the only one interested in a purpose beyond making money. Curiously he was also the only one who quickly made it, and actually enjoyed making it.

Yeah, money works in mysterious ways. We work hard or we work easy to spend it or turn it into something. Money buys us experiences. It opens doors, grants us opportunities. It permits us an enhancement and exploration of our lives. But there’s a BUT. lts many symbols can greatly overpower its actual purpose.

For instance, some of the less obvious acquisitions of money are quite intriguing. Like the fact that, through the image it projects of our lifestyle, it can buy us “friends” or attention. It can even buy lovers or “good” looks. But in these cases, the question to ask is whether money is actually securing the deeper motives behind these pursuits—connection, intimacy, true joy, self-love… or, in Joel Goddson’s words, human fulfillment.

No, money can buy no such things directly. But the way we make our money can and should surely focus on these things. But I digress. Back to Joel’s college-bound friends who want to make a lotta money. Did their money-starved minds understand that money exists as a means to serve us, not to control us?  A bit of perspective:

-With more money, we can buy a bigger, more beautiful house, with gardens and a pool and collector’s cars, but that won’t mean it buys us a home.

-Money can buy us a diamond-dusted Audemar Piguet Royal Oak watch, but it most certainly doesn’t buy us more Time.

-With money, we can buy a bed dressed in the finest embroidered Matouk sheets. But will that buy us better sleep or peace of mind?

-More money can certainly buy us the best food or allow us to dine at the most extravagant restaurants, but that doesn’t mean it will buy us appetite or the joy and art of eating.

-Money can buy us the best doctors, or the best plastic surgery, but clearly, it cannot always—even in the most capable of hands—buy us good health, wellbeing, self-esteem or self-love.

-And money can also buy us insurance—of all types and the highest standard for each—yet, this doesn’t necessarily mean it is buying us safety (and well, the topic of American health insurance is a money-leeching disgrace, but that’s another chapter).

If we’re not careful, we can become slaves to the seemingly glittery glory of money. 

There comes a point when MORE MONEY can’t buy us  better coffee or a better suit. There is a point in which more money can’t buy us a better life.

When they say, “money is the root of all evil” it is only because it can cause us to lose touch with reality and to live in a world of illusions. There are many who would much rather have money—and/or power—than a wealth of authentic material pleasures and fulfilling human experiences. So often we may not perceive an event as worthy unless it is photographed. Or we may get more pleasure from seeing it on our feed or hearing or talking about it the next day than from the event itself. We can sometimes confuse the real world with the representations and symbols we give to money and power. We’ve become so tied up in our minds that we often lose sight of what matters. Like our common sense and our need to pleasure our starved senses. 

This brings me to my main point. Our 5 senses–as well as and especially our COMMON SENSE–are being brutally hijacked. We’re not realizing that our air stinks of pollution, our water reeks of arsenic and chloramine, our trash and waste abounds, and American food (produced by the few multinationals that create the majority of what sits abominably on our supermarket shelves) has no taste and is killing us slowly but surely. TIME TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE TRUTH! We’ve let money and those with too much power take over our senses, especially our common sense. 

And yet, pleasure—true, embodied, sensory pleasure—remains a fundamental human need. We are meant to experience the world through taste, sound, sight, touch, and scent, not just consume its representations. But our culture has come to focus more on accumulating the symbols of wealth (power, social status, image) rather than the real wealth the pleasure provides. It’s like devouring the image of a restaurant and the photos acquired during the dining experience instead of savoring the actual meal. We experience the world through our five senses but fundamentally we’ve made our need for sensory indulgence more conceptual than experiential. I’ll never forget sitting at Marchesi Cafe in Via Montenapoleone, Milan, and watching as a beautifully tiered showcasing of mouth-watering canapes and pastries was snapped for thirty minutes by a group of young tourists, only to be left untouched—untasted—before they got on their way. And so, I ask:

Do we attend art exhibits or concerts to enrich ourselves or to impress others? Do we go to church to feed our spirit or do we go to church to be “good” people? 

Where are we putting our money when we fill our faces with fillers, or our bodies with implants? Are we investing in enhancing our lives or buying our way into impressing others? We’re paralyzing our sense of touch and movement with such procedures and they don’t buy us happiness or pleasure, only a distorted view of ourselves. 

Real wealth comes from truly living—immersing ourselves in the goods and experiences that bring real sensory pleasure. Money is a means, a tool. It’s our servant, not our master.