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Unit 8 Money
Time Spent Agonizing over Money
[1] Within hours of a recent major stock market drop, I telephoned my Ford dealer and ordered the station wagon that I test-drove the day before. As my friends not so subtly pointed out, the Dow Jones Industrial Average didn't have much to do with my financial situation and shouldn't affect my purchase. Besides, my old car had caused me headaches for months.
[2] Still, I spent the evening asking myself: Could I afford a new car? Should I be saving instead of spending? Would we need to cut back on vacations?
[3] On the list of items people worry about, money is almost always at the top. [4] A study in the Wall Street Journal found that 70 percent of the public lives from paycheck to paycheck. Mortgage debt has increased 300 percent since 1975, and consumer bankruptcies are at an all-time high. Most marriages that fail list financial problems as a contributing factor.
[5] When the Dow fell 554 points last October, millions of people lost billions of dollars, on paper anyway. There was expert anxiety on Wall Street and old-fashioned worry on Main Street. Our reaction confirmed what we already knew: We are a people consumed by financial stress.
*A “Raw Material”
[6] As the Bible tells us, worrying about money—or anything else for that matter—won't do us any good. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus asked. “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin.”
[7] In my heart, I aspire to be like those lilies. But in my head, I feel a need to hoard. [8] It is an unusual person who can live free from financial stress, or who can spend money on others as easily as he spends it on himself.
[9] Thomas Edison was one of that rare breed. Had the great inventor stored his money, he would have died a wealthy man. His first successful invention netted him $40,000, a huge sum in 1869. During his lifetime, he patented 1,093 inventions, yet he departed the world penniless.
[10] Years later, his son Charles recalled his father's approach to money: “He considered it a raw material, like metal, to be used rather than amassed, and so he kept plowing his funds back into new objects. Several times he was all but bankrupt. But he refused to let dollar signs govern his actions.”
[11] John Wesley was the same. The founder of Methodism had the highest earned
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income in 18th century England, but he gave it all away. His philosophy about money was simple: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”
*Root of Evil?
[12] Money may not be the root of all evil, but if it keeps us up at night, it has become way too important in our lives.
[13] That was the lesson of Leo Tolstoy's tale “Elias”, which told of a rich farm couple who lost all their money and were forced to take jobs as servants.
[14] A guest one day asked the wife if she was miserable being poor, especially in light of the great wealth she had once enjoyed. The woman's answer—that she was happier than ever before—surprised the visitor.
[15] “When we were rich, my husband and I had so many cares that we had no time to talk to one another, or to think of our souls, or to pray to God,” the wife explained. “We lay awake at night worrying, lest the ewes should lie on their lambs, and we got up again and again to see that all was well... Now, when my husband and I wake in the morning, we always greet each other in love and harmony. We live peacefully, having nothing to worry about.”
[16] For most of us, financial security is an elusive goal. No matter how much we have, it's not enough. Kahlil Gibran put it this way: “The fear of need, when the pantry is full, is the thirst that can not be satisfied.”
[17] When the stock market falls, we can panic, hoard, and worry if we have enough. Or we can take a deep breath and remember: Money is merely a raw material to be plowed back into something else.
把时间花在为钱苦恼上
1 最近一次股市大跌后的几个小时内，我就打电话给我的福特汽车商，订购了我前一天试开过的旅行车。正如我的朋友明确指出的那样，道琼斯工业平均指数与我的财政状况并无多大关系，不应该影响我买车。而且，我那旧车已经使我头疼了好几个月了。
2 但我还是整个晚上再问自己：我能买得起新车吗？我是不是应该存钱而不是花钱？我们是不是有必要减少度假的时间？
3 在人们一系列的烦恼中，钱总是名列前茅。
4 一项《华尔街日报》的研究发现百分之七十的公共其工资收入仅够开销，毫无剩余。自1975年以来按揭借债增加了百分之三百，而且消费者破产达到有史以来最高。经济问题被列为导致大多数婚姻失败的一个因素。
5 当去年十月道琼斯工业平均下跌554点的时候，数百万损失了几亿美元，至少在理论上是这样。华尔街的金融专家们在忧虑，小城镇里的思想守旧也在忧虑。我们的反应也证实
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了我们已有的看法：我们是深受经济压力折磨的人。 钱只是“原材料”
6 正像圣经告诫我们的那样，担心钱或诸如此类的事不会给我们带来任何好处。耶稣曾经问道：“你们有谁能够考忧虑使自己的生命演唱哪怕一小时？”“你们为什么要为衣服烦恼呢？看见天夜里的百合花是怎么生长的嘛？他们重不耕田纺纱》“
7 尽管我的内心渴望像百合花那样生活。单位的头脑路却敢要需要出场囤积。
8 能够不受经济困扰而生活的人，或者能把钱花在别人身上那么自在的人，都是不寻常的人。
9 托马斯.爱迪生就是这种男的人。如果这位大发明家把它的钱积蓄起来，去世的时候就会使一个达芙文。他的 第一项成功发明是他静的四万美元，这在1869年是一笔巨款。他一生中，获得了1.93项发明专利，然而，在他离开这个世界的时候却生物分文。
10 多年以后，他的日子查尔斯回忆起自己的父亲对钱的态度是说：“他把钱堪称是原材料，就像金属一样是给人用的，而不是给人囤积的，因此他一直把自己的基金重新投资到新的项目中去。有好几次他几近破产，但他决不让签主宰他的行动。“
11 约翰卫斯理也一样。这位卫斯理会的创始人在18C的英国收入最高，但他把自己的收入都给了别人。他的金钱哲学很简单:“尽量挣，尽量省，尽量给。“ 钱是万恶之源吗？
12 钱也许并不是万恶之源，但如果他是我们夜里不能寐，那他在我们生活中就过于重要了。 13 这也是列夫托尔斯泰在他创作的《伊莱亚斯》故事中所告诫的。故事讲述了一对经营农场富有的夫妇，他们失去了所有的钱，不得不去当佣人。
14 一天有位客人问这位妻子，他是不是应为贫穷而痛苦，尤其是考虑到他曾拥有巨大的财富。夫人的回答是他比以前更幸福，这是客人很吃惊。
15 “当我们富有的时候，我丈夫和我有那么多令人烦恼的事，以至于我们没时间交谈或想象我们心灵深处火上上帝祈祷”妻子解释道，我们晚上躺在床上彻夜难眠在担心，唯恐模样压在小羊身上，于是我们一次又一次的起床，以确保一切平安…..现在当我和丈夫醒来的时候，我们都要互相问候，恩爱和谐，我们生活安宁无忧无虑。“、
16 对我们大多数人来说，经纪上的安全感是难以达到的目标，不管我们恩拥有都是，总是觉得不够，卡利尔纪伯伦是这样说的：“即便是粮食漫长，但对贫穷的恐惧会成为多积蓄难于满足的渴望。“
17 当故事下跌时，即使我们拥有足够的财富，依然会恐慌，担忧，囤积。或者，我们深深地吸口气并记住：钱只是一种原材料，用来投资其他方面的
Elias: A Parable
*At one time the elderly couple had been the wealthiest in the region; now they were merely servants who had nothing but each other.
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[1] In the Province of Oufa there lived a man named Elias. His father died a year after he married, and left him a poor man. At that time Elias's property consisted only of seven mares, two cows, and twenty sheep, but now that he had become master he began to better himself. He and his wife worked hard from morning till night for thirty years, growing richer each year.
[2] Elias had two sons and a daughter, all of whom he duly married off. In the days of his poverty his sons had worked with him; but when they became rich, they began to indulge in foolish pleasures. One of them, in particular, began to drink to excess. Eventually the elder of the two was killed in a fight, and the other one, because he disobeyed his father, was turned out.
[3] Elias turned him out, but at the same time he gave him a house and cattle. His own wealth was thus diminished in proportion.
[4] Soon afterwards his sheep became infected with disease, and many of them died. Next, there was a year of drought, when no hay grew, so that many cattle starved to death during the following winter. Then the Khirgizes came and stole the best of his horses, and his property was diminished even more. By the time he had reached his seventieth year, all the property left to him consisted of the clothes on his body and his wife, Sham Shemagi, who was as old as himself. The son whom he had turned out had gone to a distant land, and his daughter was dead; so that there was no one left to help the old people.
[5] However a former neighbor of theirs, named Muhamedshah, felt sorry for them. He was neither rich nor poor, but lived plainly and was a respectable man. Remembering the days when he had been a guest in the house of Elias, he asked the couple to come and live with him and do some work for him if they liked. Elias thanked his good neighbor, and went with his old wife to live in the service of Muhamedshah. At first it grieved them to do so; but in time they got used to it, and settled down to live there and to work as much as their strength permitted.
[6] It suited their master to have them in his service, since the old people had been in authority themselves, and so knew how to do things. Moreover, they were never lazy, but worked the best they knew. Yet Muhamedshah used to feel sorry to see people formerly so high in the world now reduced to such a difficult situation.
[7] One day some of Muhamedshah's friends came to visit him. When the guests learned that Elias, once the wealthiest man in the region, was merely a servant of the host, they were so surprised that they asked the couple about their former life.
[8] “Old man,” said one of the guests, “tell me whether it grieves you—now as you
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