When the Wall Street Jour­nal colum­nist Jason Zweig was accused of being “a cod­dled mem­ber of the silver-spoon gen­er­a­tion” he decided to con­front the accu­sa­tion by retelling tales from his less-than-privileged upbring­ing. In doing so, how­ever, he made some poignant remarks about wealth:

The most impor­tant les­son that I learned, I believe, is that money is not wealth. Ben­jamin Gra­ham once wrote that the secret to hap­pi­ness is learn­ing to live well within your means. Did he mean to “live well” within your means, or to live “well within” your means? I think he inten­tion­ally left the sen­tence ambiguous.

Money should never be taken for granted. Its uses are lim­ited, but it is not a renew­able resource; it is finite. And finite resources — love, water, the Earth and, yes, money — are meant to be stew­arded and treated with care.

via Kot­tke