Everyday cannot be Sunday… but then again, every 7 days it can be right?
I’ll understand if someone thinks the above line is lame… but that’s the point! Why sulk when there is a positive side to life?
Recently, my man and I were discussing about a particular set of people (elite) who give lame excuses to prove how unhappy their life is. How they worry so much about money more than anything else. How they feel that they weren’t able to achieve anything in life… blah blah blah.
This got him and me thinking about our achievements. Mind you, neither he nor I are from well-off families. We belong to the vast majority of middle class families where we just manage to make ends meet. Where buying something from Jimmy Choo is a far-away thought and would require a pocket-money-saving of 4 months, instead just make do with Marks & Spencer. But then, we aren’t complaining… we are happy, contended, and yes, most definitely working towards having a better future. But not complaining.
Now, coming back to the elite group of people who think they don’t have it all, well, they most definitely have a lot more than my family imagines to gain. The basic examples that me and my man discussed:
1 Education – these people receive the best education has to offer and land up even earning 3 times more than the average mans salary, yet, they feel they haven’t achieved anything. I’m not saying don’t look further, nor am I saying that dreaming/hoping for betterment is wrong. All I’m trying to get at is the negativity of their nature! If you’ve reached a certain level, be happy first, live that moment and then plan your next step up. I’ve met so many competitive individuals who are so busy being serious in life that they forget to live their life!
2 How they live their life – again, as mentioned, they don’t really live their life… the simple (if I may say, cheap) pleasures of life just escape them… their idea of having a good time only involves spending money… whatever happened to rekdi / dhaba food shared with friends? Again, their friends belong to that same set of people, so where is the fun?
3 The constant complains for not being able to buy the latest design or style of a luxury item… so what if someone else owned it before you did? Can you get over it now? A little bit of positivity in their nature would help them make better acquaintances.
4 Lack of adventure – I’m not sure how many out there fall in this category, but the ones I personally know, they do fit here… even the thought of living it rough wouldn’t fit in… the impromptu long drives into the middle of the desert or the trips to another state without warning and preparations… sleeping on the sand of the beach without a mat or blanket… grabbing a bite to eat from the local vendor… overnight camps without a tent… most (or none) of it will they be able to survive due to hygiene reasons (which I always find very funny, I mean, look at us, we turned out well even though we ate the sand at the beach) oh, the main part, this would cost them just about AED 200 at the max (guess it’s too damn cheap for them)
When will man understand that money is not the begin-all and end-all of life, but just a mode of survival? When will man differentiate between ‘necessity’ and ‘luxury’? Possessing the best mobile in the market is not a necessity, it’s a luxury! Having meals at every 5-star hotel is not a necessity, it’s a luxury! There are thousands (if not millions) of people who survive only on rice and curd, not because they are on a diet of a special kind, but because there is nothing else for them to eat! Does one think that these people enjoy their life as it is and don’t work hard enough to earn their bread?
Man today is so materialistic that the purpose of their living is only to earn and spend money. I wonder if God created man for this reason. And whilst spending, do we even think once (twice is a long way) of what good that AED 500 would’ve done to another human, before buying those lovely pairs of shoes?
I’m not one of those people either… but when we really got talking, it also got me thinking. And I hope to change… I really do… I wish to give back to the universe if not everything then at least a quarter of what God gave me…
Just 2 weeks ago I was watching a documentary on water, and its availability in Africa. People of a village in Africa, cook, wash vessels, bathe and drink the same water. I’m not kidding, it’s true, they take some water in a vessel, they bathe in it, clean in it and drink the same dirty water because they have no other choice. There are social workers who are collecting money to build a proper well for these villagers and sourcing out as much water as possible.
I’m sure this is just one such case, I wonder how many more are in existence?