Is it wrong to want to be rich?

I lived in a large clay jar in the marketplace of Athens. I owned a cloak, a staff, a bag and a cup. Then one day I saw a child drinking water from his cupped hands, and I threw the cup away. A child had beaten me in simplicity.nnYou ask whether it is wrong to want riches. I would ask you what you think they will give you. Food? I ate what I found. Shelter? I had my jar. Respect? When the great Alexander stood over me and asked what he could do for me, I told him to move out of my sunlight. He went away saying that if he were not Alexander, he would wish to be Diogenes. That is the respect wealth cannot buy.nnWhat people want, mostly, is not riches. They want to stop being afraid, and to be admired. Riches do neither. The rich man is afraid of losing what he has, and the admiration he gets is for his money, not for him. He has bought a larger house and filled it with things to guard.nnSo I will not tell you the wanting is wicked. I will tell you it is a mistake. You are chasing a cure that makes the illness worse. Try instead to want less, and see how rich you feel. Most people never try it, because they are ashamed to look poor. Shame is the chain. Throw it off, as I threw away the cup, and you will be freer than any rich man in the city.

I should confess at once that I was very rich. I had houses, estates, and money lent across the empire, and my enemies loved to point out that I wrote about the simple life from a dining room full of citrus-wood tables. They were not entirely wrong. But I have thought harder about this than most, precisely because I had to.nnMy answer was this. The wise person may own wealth, so long as the wealth is in their house and not in their heart. The question is not how much you have, but whether you could lose it without losing yourself. Wealth honestly gained, used generously, held lightly, is no disgrace. It gives scope for virtue, for helping friends and the city. The same wealth, loved, feared for and counted, makes a slave of its owner.nnHere is a practice I recommended to a friend. Set aside a few days now and then in which you live poorly on purpose: the plainest food, the roughest clothes. Then ask yourself whether this is what you were afraid of. You will find that poverty is not so terrible, and once you are no longer afraid of it, money loses most of its power over you.nnSo want riches if you must. But test yourself. If the thought of never being rich fills you with dread, the wanting already owns you. If you could take it or leave it, then go ahead and earn it, honestly, and give a good part of it away.

Many of those who came to me were householders, merchants and farmers, not monks, and I did not tell them to give away everything. I spoke to them of four kinds of happiness that belong to the life of a householder. There is the happiness of having wealth, gained by your own effort and in a righteous way. There is the happiness of using it, for yourself, your family and good works. There is the happiness of owing nothing to anyone. And there is the happiness of blamelessness, of having earned and spent without harming others. I added that the last of these is worth more than the other three together.nnSo wealth itself is not the fault. Gained honestly, through work that harms no one, and shared with those who depend on you and those in need, it can support a good life.nnBut look closely at the wanting. Craving is never satisfied by what it craves. Gain one thing and the mind fastens on the next. The person who wants to be rich in order to be content will find contentment always one step further on, because the contentment was never in the riches. It was waiting in the mind that stops grasping.nnAsk yourself, then, what kind of wanting this is. If it is the wish to work well, provide for others and live without debt, it is not wrong. If it is craving, it will take everything you give it and still be hungry.