新編大學(xué)英語(yǔ)第一冊(cè)u(píng)nit5 Text A: Time Spent Agonizing over Money

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UNIT 5 IN-CLASS READING; New College English (I)

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 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 ways 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.