Most of us, who are in 50s, had probably started jobs with a salary of not more than Rs.2000 per month. This I am talking of late 1980s. If you sit back and analyse, how would you rate the life during those days – do you think the life was better that time or is it better today?
The happiness that we all enjoyed during those days with the bare minimum facilities, has just disappeared?
Money was less, but so were the aspirations. Apparently, since luxuries were luxuries and not necessities, we were able to save money during those days as well.
The MTNL phones were available in only limited houses, what to talk about mobile phones, still we never missed an important call. I remember, while we were staying in R.K. Puram, New Delhi, the nearest house that had an MTNL phone connection was about 800-900 metres away. Unless some emergency, getting a phone-call was a luxury.
There was no trace of concept of WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom or Video chatting etc. We all friends met almost daily and relatives compulsorily met once in 3-4 months.
Today, we might be earning many times more, but we always remain in stress, overloaded with anxiety and hypertension. Something or the other keeps ticking and bothering us every minute, and that deprives us to even enjoy the necessities that we have today.
There is always an inherent fear. There is always a feeling that something is not right. The heart palpitates even though we take blood pressure medicines. We are surviving on medicines, and chemists are surviving on our prescriptions.
Something is seriously missing in life – Is it peace, calmness, time, contentment or happiness or is it all.
I admire my many foreign friends who compulsorily take holidays, once in two years, just to travel across the world. Most of them visit either Europe or India. When I ask them how do they finance their travel plans – their reply is completely opposite to what we think – “We work and earn to travel around the world.”
On the contrary, we say – “We don’t travel as there is so much of work. I need to grow in life. Why spend unnecessarily.”
We do not ask for leaves, since we believe either this office would fall-apart without our presence, or we fear that someone would take-away our work and then make us redundant.
We find reasons to justify why we cannot be happy, and we are even more happy to find those stupid reasons to support our stand.
Sadly, my happiness is sold – perhaps my money sold bought my happiness. The urge of earning money took away all my emotions and happiness of my life.
I work for money but money never worked for me.
I recently met a person who has a small business of making photo-frames. After discussing all current political situation in India, he informed me that his son used to work in US, but he has now called him back to India. The reason was simple – “Where would he spend the money that he is earning in US dollars. It is better to comeback to India, be with the parents and enjoy the life. The more he stays away, the less he would be with the family. His children would not even know who their grandparents were. Time will not come back, money might.”
This made absolute sense to me. We search for happiness and money buys it all.
The wealth that we have created might still not be enough, but whatever we have accumulated, has been at the cost of our health, happiness and peace-of-mind.
We have no other planet to go. We are taking nothing with us back to where we originally belonged. Somewhere, we need to learn to be satisfied with what we have. The space that we require to sleep would be similar to the space what we would require for the last-rights.
It is better to credit your happiness for a longer life.