Who Cares About Money? IF YOUR DEFINITION OF BEING SUCCESSFUL IS HAVING A LOT OF MONEY, THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK AGAIN. Many people in this situation are often tired, stressed and sometimes quite depressed, so there must be something more. Below are some ideas we can use to define success. Which one motivates you?

While it’s clear that money is major component in our society, you don’t have to be rich to be successful. As long as you have enough money to pay your bills, feed your family and take care of your basic needs, you can breathe a sigh of relief. It’s freedom from thinking about money that defines success. After all, you can’t take it with you when you die. Financial freedom obviously affects peace of mind, but it’s only one of the ingredients. You might be worried that you’re not spending enough time with your family, or you may be feeling guilty about mistreating a colleague. Peace of mind is a condition where guilt, fear, worry and anger do not exist, you can’t be truly successful without it. If you’ve worked so hard to achieve success that you’ve compromised your own health, then you haven’t achieved your objective. To enjoy life to the full, you need to be healthy and have the energy to make the most of the time you spend with friends and family outside work. There isn’t much point in being successful if you haven’t got anyone to share it with. It doesn’t matter if it’s friends, family or a lover, but you’re sure to feel more content if you’re surrounded by a warm circle of people that love you. Friends on social networking sites don’t actually count here.

If making a lot of money is your main aim in life, then you’re likely to feel empty when and if you achieve this as you’ll have nothing else to do. You’ll probably get a deeper feeling of satisfaction if you set yourself more worthy goals, such as improving the lives of the people around you. Success relates more to the difference you make to the world than the number of figures in your bank balance. The writer Malcolm Gladwell said in his book Outliers (2008) that to become truly great at something, you need at least 10,000 hours of serious practice. He came up with this figure after studying a group of violin students at the top music academy in Berlin and noticing that only those who had practised for more than 10,000 hours had a chance of becoming world-class violinists. Whatever you think of the rule, it’s clear that success doesn’t come without a lot of hard work. People approach their careers in different ways and not everyone will make a lot of money during their life. Some would say that these people have not been successful, but perhaps they are mistaken. Surely, peace of mind and satisfaction with oneself are more important than material wealth? If that is so, then maybe we should change our definition of success and stop caring so much about money.

Who cares about money?

- worksheet

1. Read the text. Give examples of words related to money. 2. Find adjectives used to describe people. 3. Find synonyms for the following words (use a dictionary if necessary): define:

component:

die:

colleague:

fear:

objective:

content:

perhaps:

4. Find opposites for the following words (use a dictionary if necessary): below:

freedom:

guilt:

health:

mistaken:

5. Write a title for each paragraph.

6. Make a summary of the text. 7. What do you think is more important – money or happiness? Why?