Today We Talk About Money
We have got a form of brainwashing in our country. Do you know how they brainwash us? They repeat something over and over. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it - and have it repeated to us - over and over until nobody bothers to think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, and he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.
Wherever we might go in life, we meet people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of land. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they want to tell about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'. These people are so hungry for love that they accept substitutes. They are embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. We can't substitute material things for love, gentleness, tenderness, or a sense of comradeship.
Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. As we lay on our deathbed, neither money nor power will give us the feeling we were looking for, no matter how much of them we have.
There's a big confusion over what we want versus what we need. We need food, but we want chocolate. We need to be honest with ourselves. We don't need the latest car, we don't need the most prominent house. The truth is, we don't get satisfaction from those things; what gives us joy is by offering others what we have to give.
We don't have to offer money or power but time. Offer your concern, and submit your stories; it's not so hard. Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. If we show off to the top people, they will look down on us. And if we show off to the people at the bottom, they will only envy us. The status will get us nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally among everyone.
We should sometimes take out time to listen to other people because giving is what makes us feel alive. Not our car or our house. Not what we look like in the mirror. When we give our time, when we can make someone smile after feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as we can ever get.
Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, and you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back.
Anvesha Rana,
Grade 10-B,
Gyanshree School.
