“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” – Benjamin Franklin

I’ve never been one to employ large sweeping generalities. I try to recognize that everyone lives unique lives with unique backgrounds focused on unique passions. We are different in our nationality, our heritage, our gender, our family status, our religion, our culture, and our worldview. But I am becoming increasingly convinced there is one characteristic that unites each of us:

We don’t need more money.

I admit that some have stumbled upon this blog post today who do need money for legitimate survival. But it is probably not you. After all, you clearly have access to the Internet… which doesn’t guarantee you have everything you need for survival, but it sure increases the probability. Add to that the reality that 6 billion people live on less than $13,000/year and Daniel Suelo has survived the past 12 years with no money at all and I’d say chances are pretty good your basic needs are already taken care of.

We don’t really need more money.

But most of us still want it. We’d like more cash in our pocket. We want a bigger paycheck each week. We want a larger balance in our checking account, savings account, or retirement account. And many of us have tied our happiness to this pursuit of money.

Even though our basic needs have been met, our desire for money persists. Far too often, this desire begins to take root as a need inside of us. Before we know it, we forget that we were talking about a want and begin confusing it with a need. But what we need and what we want are rarely the same.

We don’t really need more money. Instead…

Again, we don’t really need more money. Maybe what we really need is far more difficult to discover… but also, far more valuable.