Which of us has not preferred a simple meal with good companions to a feast with those with whom we do not get on? The force of this proverb is that a happy loving relationship, though it may not be wealthy, is more desirable to wealth and ostentation where there is hatred.

One doesn’t have to be wealthy to be happy, though no doubt many would like to be better off than they are.Riches do not bring happiness; in fact, neither do they bring lasting love and companions, as the prodigal son himself discovered. Only the other day there was a report of a lottery winner who had turned to drugs. The man, who was 38 years old at the time and his 36-year-old wife had won £5.4 million. Yet, young and wealthy though he had become, he turned to drugs to cope with the pressures of becoming a millionaire overnight. The stresses led to his wife walking out on him and his two young children having to move schools. Magistrates in Sheffield gave him a two-year conditional discharge and two weeks to pay £50.00 costs. His lawyer said, ‘If he still lived on the council estate like an ordinary family with 2.4 children, he would not have received the same media attention that he has today. His life has been made intensely difficult’. How devastated his wife must have felt when family life, love and companionship was replaced with wealth and stress; and who could blame her is she wished the old days back again?


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