All living beings have one thing in common. Their love for physical pleasure. Be it food, water, mating, family, society, children, fame and power. Anything which gives them the feeling of physical satisfaction even momentarily, is deemed correct. However, what differs us humans from other living beings is our conscience. We know when we are right or wrong. Its innate to us. We feel bad, sad, guilty, anxious, lost, unsettled whenever we are not on the right path. Its like our mind/soul already knows all the answers, it just can’t give us the reasoning behind them.
I’d like to talk about the Rat-race in which we all are into, with or without our consent or even knowledge of. We take birth into this world, we somehow grow up as there is no correct way of growing up. Some of us are born with silver spoon, some are born talented. Others just make their lives somehow bearable. But all of us are in chase of something. For the majority of us its ‘MONEY’. Because money is an enabler. It allows you to have freedom to go anywhere, do anything, be whoever or whatever you want to be. Money is a dream come true. Its more valuable than anything in the world including your relationships. Of course it’s not everything but still its is almost EVERYTHING.
So what’s the problem then, you might ask? Well, if money is the solution to our every problem then how come all the rich people are so vulnerable. Why do they constantly live in fear? Fear of losing money, fear of deceit, lies, fraud and people. You’d notice that most rich elites live in isolation. Not that they don’t like company of others but they don’t really trust anyone and I mean ANYONE. Including their spouses and children. Because when all you have is Money, everyone else looks like a thief.
The thing is, be it money or power or fame or any other desirable thing in this materialistic world, you can NEVER live in peace, harmony and happiness unless you have peace and harmony in your inner self.
Now I’m not arguing that we shall all give up all our material belongings and stop acting our roles in this physical realm but rather we must be CONSCIOUS of our DESIRES and ACTIONS.
Two Words – Virtue and Excellence.
You see humans are the only species which can differentiate between right or wrong. Although, the whole debate of right vs wrong is subjective but we all can agree with some common understanding that there are things we MUST prevail in order to continue our human civilisation. Our values, morals, laws and our collective understanding of how a society shall operate is the result of 10,000+ years of our existence. Its nothing compared to other living beings’ species age. But even in such short period we were able to find the concepts of TRUTH, JUSTICE, HONOUR, DIGNITY, PRIDE, RESPECT and COURAGE.
Second thing is, Excellence. Whatever you do in your life, you must give it your all in. Don’t do it half-heartily. Life is too short to waste it on doing things which you might not care about or simply don’t want to. You have to find a way to be the best possible version of yourself, everyday! Do something everyday which brings you closer to the being you want to become not in physical sense but in virtuousness. You want to have a strong character not just strong muscles. You want to have a big heart, not just big pockets. You want to have an ability to give, not to horde more and more.
Virtue and Excellence in what we want to be, makes our life meaningful and gives us a path to walk on. Instead of wandering off from here to there in chase of women, money, fame and power, one must spend every single moment given to him/her being a person who can help others and do no harm to them or to the world if he/she can’t do any good either.
The path of Virtue and Excellence is long and difficult. Its infinite. At least on path of money and other materialistic desires you reach somewhere. You can accumulate vast amount of wealth, get hold of absolute power to rule over world but it doesn’t last.
The material world is like sand. No matter how much you hold onto it, it just slips right between your fingers with time.
The true and only path is the path of being a noble person, a virtuous person. Having excellence as your way of life. There is no destination in this path. In the end, we all must die. That is the TRUTH of life. However, a life of full of virtue and excellence is better than million lives of materialistic rat-race.