Something that I have come to realize is that there is a whole slew of memes that are interconnected in the area of money and success. But these memes are about keeping us from achieving money and success, instead of helping us obtain it. They are very widespread today, and a huge majority of the population is tainted with them. These memes are gladly accepted and replicated because they allow people to validate their lack of progress in their life goals. I’ve found that some of them are:

❚ Money is bad.
❚ Rich people are evil.
❚ It is spiritual or noble to be poor.
❚ Big entities are bad; underdogs and the little guys are good.
❚ You have to sell your soul to get rich.
❚ Rich people lie, cheat, and steal.
❚ Rich people have lots of money, but they also have many additional
problems. Being rich isn’t worth it.
❚ Money causes good people to go bad.
❚ If you deny yourself now, God will provide true prosperity in
the afterlife.

It might be hard to believe that something a teacher or parent said to us when we were six years old is preventing us from getting a promotion today, but it could very true. We may doubt that a TV show we watched when we were younger could be causing our friendships, relationships, and/or marriages to suffer 20 years later, but that might be the case. We may find it hard to believe to think the books we’ve read or the movies we’ve enjoyed could be causing us to get sick or manifest disease.

But in fact, this is exactly what is happening to millions of people. And most likely you or I could be one of them. As we are exposed to these people, institutions, and environments, we are likely to be infected by thousands of potential memes. Just as exposure to raw sewage can cause us to be infected with germs, microbes, and other nasty things, prolonged exposure to the data-sphere (meaning TV, radio, movies, books, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and e-mail) will infect us with many nasty viruses of your mind if we’re not careful what we chose and what we do with it.

Memes are as real—and deadly—as biological viruses. Just like computer viruses, memes parasitize the host (our minds), replicate, and spread to others. And just like other viruses, an epidemic of memes is sweeping through our society today.