CHUKWUDIFU AKUNNE OPUTA: On What Money Can’t Buy -1982

Since the unbridled quest for money is one of the greatest i’lls, it is necessary to consider the real value of money in human existence.

The late George Horace Lorimer for many years Editor of Saturday Evening Post, once wrote some wise words about money: ” It is good to have money and it is a good thing to have the things that money will buy. It is good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things money cannot buy.”
I will like everyone of you to make your own list of what money cannot buy. I will here name a few of them, and leave you to continue the list.
(1) Money cannot buy real friendship, friendship must be earned. (ii) Money cannot buy clear conscience- square dealing is the price tag. (iii) Money cannot buy happiness- happiness is a mental attitude and one can be happy in a mud but be unhappy in a mansion. (iv) Money cannot buy the air we breathe- without which we cannot even have life to run after money. (v) Money cannot buy inward peace- peace is the result of a constructive philosophy of life. And there is no such peace when what is professed differs from what is practiced.(vi) money cannot buy character- character is the sum total of what others, not only your friends but also your enemies, think of you.
The list of what money cannot buy is a long one..In the end you will find that among the things that money cannot buy are some of the most valuable treasures that life has to offer.
If that is so why don’t we cultivate the correct attitude towards money as a useful servant, but a very wicked, soulless and unprofitable master to serve?

Per Oputa Selected Speeches & Reflections 1982.

CHUKWUDIFU AKUNNE OPUTA: 22nd Sept. 1924- 4th of May 2014

Source: Barr George Oputa