Author: Apurva, New Delhi
It’s me, my father and mother at home. Once I had an argument with them and I left home. I was crying and I started walking toward hillside. I kept walking for many hours – Passing across the flock of sheep, I reached a pond with lotus blooming in it and bumblebees humming over them sucking nectar. I felt thirsty and wanted to drink water but the lotus pond was not having clean water so I sit on stone nearby and started looking around. An old man came towards me and asked me why I was crying? I begged him for food and water as I came running and was very thirsty. He pointed his finger towards a chest of gold coins shining at a distance. He asked me to go and pick some gold coins and buy food for myself from the market nearby to that place. I cried with joy and start moving towards the chest but as I took my first step; the old man warned me, “You can go and take as many coins you want but there is a magical ointment rubbed on all the coins and once you touch them you will only be alive for 6 hours; after that you will die.”
I got aghast with the thought of dying. I stood horror struck for a while and many thoughts flashed my mind in a while. I came on verge of fainting and I realized that I had come far from my house with no idea how to go back. The sun was about to set and I stumbled over a piece of rock and fell down. Rolling down the cliff, I hit my head with a cactus standing on one side and my forehead started bleeding. I managed anyhow, stood again and started running upside towards cliff. Very soon I realized that I had no energy left in me and so I started shouting for help. Within few seconds, someone hit me hard on back and asked loudly, “Why the hell are you shouting? What happened?” And I woke up.
It was just a dreadful dream and my mother hit me hard to wake me up. She was trying to wake me up since long time but I was not willing to leave the bed. But this dream advocates inside me numerous questions that how much money is important for anybody? If given a choice between money and life – what will be the choice of many?
Life is irresistible – But does it prevail for every individual? Umm! This is so subjective and mind wobbling.
For Filthy Rich – might be its tempting and seductive, for average living household – it can be compelling and a fine fettle to go along with but what about the poor, who cannot even afford to have regular meals to staunch their hunger?
When I grew up and had that much ability to comprehend, my reasoning about this ugly candour that how much money, materialistic possessions and opulence can make a person truly happy and satisfied started haunting me day and night so I tried to find the answer of this extremely back breaking question.
By God grace I had a lavish life and I encountered millions of people till now from rags to pile of abundance from East to West, but unfortunately or fortunately I could not come across even one single person who had no grudges or complaints and was extremely satisfied. Again I retaliated and countered myself with pool of thoughts if these numbers that I encountered with can be taken as a sample size for such a vast population living in a phase of this Earth? My small research work in my own ability then added up with extensive study and more conversations but to my utter surprise again I could not find one person – extremely happy and satisfied. The crux of all this matter is Money is Important but Money can’t make you happy or sad; Happiness and sadness is innate and it is as per the conviction of every individual in capacity of their own circumstances.
Wealth and such proposition are momentary and not long lasting. This is the ultimate truth; humans are created with apprehensions not to come, conquer and die but to know the true self of their being.
Socrates said – “Know thyself!”
And this simple yet profound statement lived centuries and survived this cruel world to sustain and live till today. My understanding of life and humans has made me reach to this conclusion that wealth is tempting but it is not the ultimate desire of any living being. The most precious thing with every individual is this life. If one is alive then only there are possibilities for every Individual to have wealth but once if you die, whole world’s wealth cannot make you alive.
Realistically If we think, almost everybody knows this but only few apply this to day today living. My idea to jot all this down is just to spark that thought of questioning inside every human being who will read this story that respect your life!! Start knowing yourself. Desires are never ending and they will come and go but life is one. Take care of it and lead with an example else many have come many have gone but only few are remembered for good.
