{"id":26064,"date":"2019-08-26T13:12:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T17:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=26064"},"modified":"2019-09-30T14:52:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T18:52:53","slug":"from-monk-to-money-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/from-monk-to-money-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"From Monk to Money Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to September 2019<\/a><\/div>\n

\"FromI\u2019ve always hated talking about money. Growing up in a rich family, I learned through the behavior of those around me that money and materialism were evil. Instead of being used in love and service, money was weaponized and became a tool to manipulate and control behavior.\u00a0So when I began studying philosophy and religion in high school and read the words of Paul the apostle, \u201cFor the love of money is the root of all evil,\u201d I mistakenly believed Paul was right. I was a proto-monk in the making.<\/p>\n

As a rebellious teenager, I found refuge in a hippie community, but despite the \u201cone world\u201d rhetoric, they didn\u2019t seem to give a darn about anyone but themselves. So in college, I pivoted in the other direction and attended Officer Candidate School with the US Marine Corps and loved it. I was looking for a life of selfless service, but the Marines taught us to enjoy killing, and that freaked me out.<\/p>\n

If I was to quit the Marines and do something better, what could be a higher calling? Where else could I live a noble life and avoid the \u201cgreedy capitalist corporate world?\u201d Just then, I began to have a religious reawakening and started to explore the possibility of becoming a monk.<\/p>\n

It seemed a perfect solution. In the monastery, I would have all the structure and discipline I liked about the Marines along with comradery, or esprit de corps, but with an even nobler purpose. God comes before country. Best of all, I would take a vow of poverty and be free from the grip of money and materialism forever.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

I entered the monastery fresh out of college. My original intent was to try it out for a little while, like taking a gap year. It was the \u201croad less traveled.\u201d I was looking for the meaning of life, and I decided that if I was ever going to find it, a monastery was the most likely place to do so. Each day was rich with meaning, even if poor in spirit.<\/p>\n

In my early years at the monastery, it was a struggle to pay the bills and keep the household running smoothly. Since the other brothers were older and wiser, I assumed they knew something about finance and bookkeeping. Sadly, this was not the case. Within a few years, it was clear that something was desperately wrong with the community finances. We were all working full time, but somehow there wasn\u2019t enough money to pay the bills.<\/p>\n

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