What is money? We idolize those who have it and pity those who do not. We spend forty-plus hours a week to earn it, or beg, borrow, and sometimes even steal to obtain it. Money is everywhere, it touches everything, and it is on the minds of most people constantly. Yet, at the end of the day, it is only a means to an end, not the end itself. What sort of power does money hold over us that drives people to extreme lengths to acquire it, only to trade it away for something else? It is not food we can eat when we are hungry, not a bed under a warm roof, not a vacation to a tropical island, nor a memorable night out with friends—yet we use money to secure all of these things.

Why is it that in school we learn a wide variety of subjects that may be useful in life or simply interesting, yet the one thing that everyone uses every day, regardless of their dreams, is scarcely discussed? It seems upside down that education prioritizes factoring complex polynomials, which very few people will ever use again, over teaching the basics of money, which 100 percent of people will use every day for the rest of their lives. It is time to flip this right-side up and begin to answer the simple yet profound question: what is money?