“Frankly, I don’t need the money.”

I recently heard this from a friend who had just turned down an offer to invest in real estate. While not knowing this person’s exact financial situation, I still walked away confused.

On one hand, it could be a sign of health and contentment. I hit my number, and I don’t need any more. This person is truly content. Isn’t that success?

On the other hand, could this be something other than contentment? Could it possibly be complacency or even selfishness? I began to wonder.

• To one person a talent is given and he buries it in the ground—destined to give a 0% return.
• To another, two talents are given and he doubles it to four.
• To a third, five talents are given and he doubles it to 10!

Which one was selfish? Answer: The one who was given only 1 talent! Yet it appears as contentment on the surface. (I’m not accusing my friend of being selfish. Perhaps he is just following conventional wisdom anyway.)

Jesus calls us to be wise stewards and investors. This means thinking more long-term than just one’s lifetime or the immediate needs of one’s own life, doesn’t it? (And it also doesn’t mean the next generation should live in the lap of luxury without learning to serve society as well. That would undo the previous logic!)

Now, if my friend is content with all he has, why wouldn’t he rather invest even more aggressively to be able to give more away?

He had reached the place where flashy double-digit returns were no longer appealing. But that should never have been the main motivation. Growth is good, but not for its own sake. Growth is a means to a greater goal: giving, blessing others, impacting the Kingdom of God.

What if we stopped measuring “enough” when it was only enough for us personally and started measuring it in terms of impact others around us?

In short: Money is not the goal. It has never been the goal. The goal is not a quantifiable number.

But if personal contentment is the ultimate end—then we stop growing in order to give. We only measure needs as they pertain to ourselves. And that’s short-sighted.

In Lee Eisenberg’s book, The Number, he says “The Number is the ultimate Rorschach test. What you see in it says more about you than it does about the markets or the economy.”

I would add that it also says more about how long-term your vision is. If portfolio growth is only for you and your spouse to enjoy on a beach—to spend down to zero doing what you love—then growth was wasted on you.