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Tag: is money important?

Oh killer!

Oh killer!

Published May 31, 2021

A slow-walking saint hit a metal box with his walking cane. He looked down to see what his cane had touched, and realized it was a treasure chest, partly open. He immediately exclaimed “Oh killer!”, and then went along his way.

A few hours later, two men came there from opposite directions, and laid eyes on the chest at the same time. Each knew that the other had seen the treasure too. What to do? They decided to divide the contents amongst them. “Total 100 coins, 50 for you, 50 for me.” Great, that’s settled. Then they realized that the treasure chest itself had not been divided. How to divide it? Not possible. They bickered for a while, and then decided to resolve the matter the following day because it was already getting dark.

One man said to the other, “Hey, it’s getting dark, and we’re both hungry. Why don’t you go to the nearby town, eat some food, and pack some takeaway for me as well? I’ll safeguard your 50 and my 50 till you are back.” The other man retorted, “You think I was born yesterday? I’m not budging from here. If you want, you go and get the food!” The first man relented, went to the town, had his fill and came back with some food. As soon as he arrived, the second man stabbed him with a knife. The bleeding wouldn’t stop, and soon enough he lay dead. The stabber sat down relieved that all the 100 coins were now his, and ate to his heart’s content the food brought to him by the other man. In a short while, he too lay dead, as the food had been poisoned.

Hours later, the same slow walking saint came by, looked at the 100 coins, and the two dead bodies, and exclaimed, “Oh killer!”, and walked on.

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Is money important?

Is money important?

Published August 22, 2020

We are all scrambling mindlessly to make money. Or to make more money. Money is such an interesting invention.

For all the bad things in the world, the more the money, the worse it gets. If you are loaded, how does one say “No”, to all the friends that come to borrow and never repay. How does one keep away all the ‘eyes’ on your money. And the potential family feuds, and the rivalries, and even one’s own ego?

For all the good things however, there is quite nothing like money. It can buy time – a good amount of money means one doesn’t need to work as many hours in a typical job. It can also buy health to some extent, quality of life, maybe even a good life-partner! If one is inclined, it also helps in the service of others. Said differently, we cannot donate any money if we do not have any money in the first place.

There is nothing inherently wrong with money. But only as long as we treat it as the means, and not the end. Therefore money has to be a very personalised and calibrated metric. An exercise each one of us must embark on is to figure out for ourselves – how much is enough. This must be personalised, because it will depend on our own personal needs and expenses, without comparative inputs on the size of the neighbour’s car/house/yacht (because that will feature in their own calculation!). We can, however, consider those who live on 1/100th of what we have, but still lead happy lives. Our own ancestors for instance – would have had much lower take-homes, but they managed to raise significantly larger families!

Here is what we must always bear in mind. Money is very very very important. But it is not the most important thing.

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