Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-24
FEATURE Rcz
SUCCESS IS WITHIN YOU
Money Sickness Hits
Our Generation Hard
IS WITHIN YOU
BY HOWARD WHITMAN

AT a meeting OF the American
Association for the Advance
ment of Science Boston doctor
read a paper on a malady which
you will not find in any of the
Latin-encrusted nosologies of
medicine. He called it money
sickness"
Money Sickness" he said, sis
the commonest psychosomatic
illness of our times" He held it
responsible for many physical
symptoms such as stomach trou-
BILE, headaches, back pains, ach-
ing joints and also emotional
disturbances which might take
the form Of depression, hysteria,
or anxiety.
The difficulty, he explained,
does not arise from the amount
of money one has or how badly
he may need some more; it stems
rather from the particular mean
ings one attaches to money.
What does money symbolic? Is
ones emotional security attached
to it? Does one associate it
with love? Is it catchall for
anxieties?
Big Disappointment
The doctor declared, "One of
life's major disappointments,
which almost every child expert
ences, is that his parents cannot
provide him with limitless
money. The manner in which
a child resolves his early con-
fiicts about money will deter
mine some of his basic person.
atty and character traits, aspi-
rations, and behavior patterns.
Susceptibility to money sick
ness is increased, he said, when
parents use money to bride chill
dren, substitute money for real
love, ride herd too closely on the
ehild's use of his own money.
The allowance" should not be
!quated in the child's mind with
lis weekly ration of affection.
In trying to arrive at salts
factory understanding of the
meaning of money many of us
go to extremes. We reject money
MADNESS on the one hand and
too often swing to a diSdain cat
least an assumed disdain) for
money on the other. This is to
assume that money has a char
acter in itself, is either good or
evil. Are arithmetic numbers
either good or evil. or the dates
on the calendar, or railroad time
tables?
What is money, anyway, but
an abbreviation for work? You
can't carry four or five hours of
labor around in your pocketbook,
but you certainly can carry the
proceeds of four or five hours of
your labor. Then. of course, you
can exchange it for someone
else's labor.
Money is simply a convenient
way of exchanging your work for
someone else's. Money, you
might say, is work in a portable,
Storable, exchangeable form.
Want tn Earn
The economically as well as
the psychologically healthy at
titude is not to want money but
to want to earn money. Every
individual has the right to hope
that his contribution to the
worlds work will be such that he
will merit great reward. But to
want the reward without want
ing to make the contribution is
to be psychologically in the
swaddling cloth Of the infant.
A man I met in Pasadena,
Texas, was in charge of labor
relations for his company, a large
chemical firm. When employe
representatives came in to his
Office to ask for some increase
In pay, decrease in hours, or
any other emolument, he had a
stock reply. You are asking
for something for nothing" he
would tell them. 1.-THE rule BY
which we do business here is
something for something"
The men liked this straight
from the shoulder approach.
They also recognized that 1t did
honor to their position: they were
not asking for, nor were they
going to get, a handout. Instead
they had to make the company
man see Just how whatever i'm
provement they were seeking in.
pay, working hours, or working
conditions would rebound in the
end to the betterment of the
company itself.
II they made a case they got
what they asked for, If not they
went away realizing there was
no more reason for the company
to give them something for Moth
ing than for them to give the
company something for nothing