The Banker
Having spent his working life surrounded by figures, a retired Banker had taken all of his savings and worldly goods and invested them in the stock market. He now spent his days watching three computer screens on his desk, tracking numbers going up and numbers going down.
He lived in the corner of the office, in his rickety old house, his desk and screens lit by an artificial strip light above his head. He never went anywhere, or bought anything. His wife complained that she never saw him and when she did, she lamented that all the Banker could speak about were the numbers on the screens, whether they were going up or whether they were going down.
Each night the Banker would obsessively make a tally of how much money he had now amassed and how many shares and title deeds he now owned. After making his evening’s calculations he would rub his hands together and rhythmically key all of his figures into an enormous spreadsheet. With a satisfactory click of the mouse he would finally close the computer down, and with a slug of whisky he would smugly crawl into his bed, by his desk.
But one day, a seismic crash took all of the numbers on his screens and made them fall down, down, down to the floor. The Banker howled in horror as his tally told him that he had lost all of his money, his stocks and his title deeds. Stricken with grief he roared and began banging his head off of the top of his desk.
Upon hearing the noise, his wife ran into the room and the Banker told her what had happened. “Don’t worry”, she said, “I have the answer to your problem”.
“You do?, said the Banker in disbelief.
“Yes”, said his wife.
She went to a corner cupboard and came back holding a box for the Banker.
“Here you are dear husband. As the money was just mere figures on a screen and you never used any of it, nor intended to, you might just as well play Monopoly instead”.
The value of money, depends not on accumulation, but on its use.
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