Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, But Almost Everything We Need Does

Every parent has said it in exasperation: “Money doesn’t grow on trees!” The phrase comes naturally – our parents said it too. But have you ever stopped to think about it? Like really think about it?

Why doesn’t money grow on trees?

What if it did? Well if it did, then everybody who uses money would plant a whole lot of them, wouldn’t they? A couple results of that situation immediately come to mind.

First, economically, inflation would be rampant. We’d all have so much money, it would rapidly lose its value. Second, money trees would quickly start replacing all the other trees – fruit trees, nut trees, trees that provide medicine, forage, mulch, habitat, wildlife food, shade, shelter, fuel, fun, evapotranspiration, carbon sequestration, oxygen production, soil stabilization and production, wind breaks, and beauty. These plants produce many of the things we need to survive.

In most societies we use money or some other currency to buy these things we need. If these things we need to survive ceased to exist or diminished in number, the money that we use (the money tree money) would have no value. You can’t eat it, drink it, or use it for medicine. There are no animals that can eat it and then become food for us. We can’t burn it for energy, and it wouldn’t make a very good building material. We’d never let the leaves fall to the ground, and, just like intensive agriculture today, they would quickly use up the existing resources in the ground without replacing them.

If money grew on trees, it would be a disaster.

No, money doesn’t grow on trees, but we do have trees and plants that produce the things we need to survive. We even have trees and plants that produce things you can sell for money if you want to go that route. In fact, you can easily procure and plant these trees in your yard. We can put them at apartment complexes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and places of worship. Many of them just grow all on their own in the wild.

So to go back to the question above, why doesn’t money grow on trees? Because we don’t need money to survive. We need the things real trees provide to survive. Once we realize that nature gives us everything we need and that money doesn’t, we can focus on helping nature to flourish instead of destroying it for money. And the more we choose to be grateful for what we have and what nature has to offer, the less we will suffer from greed.

So go plant trees! Better yet, plant food forests, and contact us for help.