I remember reading a story written by Leo Tolstoy which goes by the title "How much land does a man need", for those of you who haven't read it, let me give a gist of the story, but I also would request you to read it once to really understand what Tolstoy is trying to convey about Human greed and contentment..
So the protagonist of the story is Pahom, who hears his wife and sister in law talk about how one can make money by farming. He thinks to himself, if i had so much of land i wouldn't fear the devil himself, unbeknownst to him, Satan is sitting behind the stove and challenges him and tells him that Pahom would amass as much land as he can but Satan will finally take it all away from him.
So from here starts Pahom's journey, he first buys some farming land, then some more land that he rents out and finally gets to know about simple down to earth people called the Bashkirs who offer him as much as land as he can cover starting from daybreak to dawn and return back to the starting point, while marking the area with a spade. All this would be his for a thousand rubles!
Pahom starts the journey, realizing too late that he will never make it to the starting point by dawn, where the bashkirs are waiting for his return. He starts to run and falls down and dies during his run. Ironically in the end his servant then buries him in a small piece of land that is just 6 feet long and deep. More often than not we are like Pahom! We want so much that we forget what we have in hand. We run behind what we can have without realizing our needs are quite often different from our greed!
I recently met a director of a company, he is smart successful and earning millions as bonus and shares in India. I asked him a simple question... What makes him sweat so much? His answer was that when his child was dying he was still struggling with money. She had cancer and he had no money to pay her bills! He said you have no idea how that felt. Of course I don't think I have any idea but I did tell him that cancer runs in my family as well and some of my rich aunts did not survive even if they had houses worth crores! He is running when the battle has long been lost! What's the point?
Life I think is best described as twisted, grass is always green on the other side. We forget the simple pleasures in life and run after the complex ones that is projected out to us by people selling us brands and ideas. Like Epicurus once put it " To be happy in life you don't need to be a king! You need a well rooted group of friends and family to be with you during your ups and downs and whom you can trust, your own independent earnings unlike a job." Epicurus had a small green pasture of land and some goats with him as his assets which took care of his needs, and he says "you need to have time to have thoughtful reflection. If you do not reflect you are as good as a hamster that runs behind the cheese."
To me this is the ideal life.. simple uncomplicated and small pleasures that give enormous amount of happiness. Each to his own but there is more to life than a big car and a villa. Know when to stop because that is also necessary because you do not know when is the full stop to your life.
So the protagonist of the story is Pahom, who hears his wife and sister in law talk about how one can make money by farming. He thinks to himself, if i had so much of land i wouldn't fear the devil himself, unbeknownst to him, Satan is sitting behind the stove and challenges him and tells him that Pahom would amass as much land as he can but Satan will finally take it all away from him.
So from here starts Pahom's journey, he first buys some farming land, then some more land that he rents out and finally gets to know about simple down to earth people called the Bashkirs who offer him as much as land as he can cover starting from daybreak to dawn and return back to the starting point, while marking the area with a spade. All this would be his for a thousand rubles!
Pahom starts the journey, realizing too late that he will never make it to the starting point by dawn, where the bashkirs are waiting for his return. He starts to run and falls down and dies during his run. Ironically in the end his servant then buries him in a small piece of land that is just 6 feet long and deep. More often than not we are like Pahom! We want so much that we forget what we have in hand. We run behind what we can have without realizing our needs are quite often different from our greed!
I recently met a director of a company, he is smart successful and earning millions as bonus and shares in India. I asked him a simple question... What makes him sweat so much? His answer was that when his child was dying he was still struggling with money. She had cancer and he had no money to pay her bills! He said you have no idea how that felt. Of course I don't think I have any idea but I did tell him that cancer runs in my family as well and some of my rich aunts did not survive even if they had houses worth crores! He is running when the battle has long been lost! What's the point?
Life I think is best described as twisted, grass is always green on the other side. We forget the simple pleasures in life and run after the complex ones that is projected out to us by people selling us brands and ideas. Like Epicurus once put it " To be happy in life you don't need to be a king! You need a well rooted group of friends and family to be with you during your ups and downs and whom you can trust, your own independent earnings unlike a job." Epicurus had a small green pasture of land and some goats with him as his assets which took care of his needs, and he says "you need to have time to have thoughtful reflection. If you do not reflect you are as good as a hamster that runs behind the cheese."
To me this is the ideal life.. simple uncomplicated and small pleasures that give enormous amount of happiness. Each to his own but there is more to life than a big car and a villa. Know when to stop because that is also necessary because you do not know when is the full stop to your life.
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