Monday, August 2, 2010

Money..is it all that bad ?

I was reading this story on some blog. It was about a man who was burning Money. The author had brilliantly written this short story. Some points in the story hit me quite hard. The author had described Money as thing which everyone was running after. Then, about the man who was burning Money, he said that money must have taken something more precious from him and that must have made him HATE money so much that he started to burn it. And he concluded that there are somethings more important than money. I was with him till here. But then I read the comments. People mentioned that WE are burning our youth, our relationship, our health running behind money. The generalization to WE is what bothered me the most.
Throughout our life we are told, money can buy you a bed, but not sleep. Money can buy you luxuries, but not peace of mind. Money can not buy love. Money can not buy friends. Most Bollywood movies we see, show the poor as the victims and rich as tyrants. Always poor will need the money and the rich won't help out. Thus symbolizing money is bad. 
Its not that I disagree to what we are told or what we see. Its just that, I feel these things are misinterpreted. Firstly I will talk about the comments.
Lets take an example. Some XYZ comes from a middle class family and dreams of having all the luxuries of the rich say a nice,bungalow, a farm house, a nice car or whatever. This persons works very hard all his life to fulfill his dreams. He has to make some sacrifices for this. Say he screwed up his relationships while doing this. Will you say he was wrong in running behind his dream? They tell you to follow your dreams and make sacrifices to fulfill them. If a persons chose money as his dream and screwed up his relationships then he is wrong. But when a person chose to free a country and screwup his relationships then he is MAHATMA.
Now let me shed some light on how the things we are told throughout our life are misinterpreted. They say Money can buy you a bed, but not sleep. What if XYZ works really hard for his money and buys a nice bed. I don't see any reason why he can not sleep. Din't money buy him sleep here ? They say  Money can buy you luxuries, but not peace of mind. Who decides in what I find my peace of mind? I might find peace of mind watching a movie, going on a walk, taking a vacation. It could be anything. Now if XYZ finds peace of mind when he enjoys his luxuries, din't money buy him his peace of mind. They say money can't buy you friends or love. But why do they assume that these things are mutually exclusive ?If XYZ's partner and his friends understand that he runs behind money to fulfill his dreams, why will they not stand by him? If he manages his work-personal life balance well, I don't see any reason why he can not have both money and love. 
That was pretty much what I had in my mind.I'll let you decide for yourself, if money is all that bad.

5 comments:

  1. "They tell you to follow your dreams and make sacrifices to fulfill them."
    It should be you who is making sacrifices not the person with you! Its your dream, not his/her.

    They also tell you that "Set your dreams for a better cause." However not everyone can have a dream like that.

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  2. @shruti: am i not making any sacrifices ?

    All I am trying to say is that dont judge people. Everyone has their own dreams and no one else should set it for them.

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  3. @mayur: I am not saying dont follow your dream! i am just saying be careful in setting your dream; it shouldn't be achieved at the cost of some1 else's happiness.

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  4. A lil extremist post ;) First of all its rare that people set just Money as your dream.You live in a society and you need people around you and emotional support at many stages.So sacrificing them for money will not be justified.And it would be kind of impossible to find people who support you for running behind the money. At some stage they will tend to find peace w/o money.

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  5. @asawari: I am not asking people to support someone for running behind money... all i am asking is not judge them...some people get a kick by writing a flawless code...some might get it in managing people... and some might get it in earning lots of money and living a lavish life...
    can you say that the third person is wrong ?

    and I totally agree when you say that even such people will find peace without money at sometime...but till then can you blame them ?

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