I am a compulsive thinker. My mind wanders all the time, particularly when idle. So this piece which comes from my thoughts while stuck in traffic today is no surprise to me. And that I was returning from a rather engrossing day at work did the trick too.
I was sitting in an auto which i found after asking at least, if not anything, 25 autos and taxis. I saw it stuck on a stretch. It was pacing ten inches a time and then the light at distance will turn Red again. I saw meter ticking and out of boredom and habit made several different calculations around those numbers. It hit me how i am paying so much more for standing there. Then next second my mind, out of the bad habit given by my job, wandered to calculating how much more return one needs to make in each investment to cover this uncalled for cost.
That's when the white fairy propped up from one shoulder and said "look at you!
What's wrong with you. Of all the good things in life, you are thinking investment and returns outside office. If nothing, look outside and appreciate the over hyped rains of city."
And that's when i realized this. Money was not meant to be earned to double or triple; it was to help one meet the needs. When did this process of 'requirement to buy' escalate itself to force one to lose track of how much is needed and do it all the time. It is an addiction, 'how much more you can make of what's in hand.' It makes one forget the purpose.
I see how each decimal, bips and pips make or mar people's lives. How they can spend a full day staring at numbers which are moving up or down and running a vicious book in head of how much was made or broken. And what defeats me is how this is an industry. Till the sanity prevailed in world, people made money from what they worked, they did not make money as their work. And icing is, I find myself getting high on this each day. Not to my liking or disliking-its just happening.
As i write this, its hard to convince myself because its everywhere now. But that's not how it started. That's not how it was conventionally. Imagine in old hindi movie, hero's dad gives his mom's mangalsutra as collateral to lalaji for money. Lalaji 'din't go out to bigger lender to earn better interest or take funding against his asset. Come on. It was simpler. Jokes apart, the more you cascade it, the more money you make, with diminishing rates of return. Everyone is capturing that minute differential and hoping to do it over and over again to make it big
It's crazy. It's addicting. It's diverting emotions to wrong things...Burn out for ten years and then retire is indeed a game plan of most people. Really? Store life? No one can see how flawed this is! You can't lock life in bank vault and redeem it later with higher interest rates. Its not principal protected-unfortunately.
I have no conclusion to this thought. I am very much neck deep in madness myself...
"Money is to be used; people are to be loved. Never confuse the two"
I was sitting in an auto which i found after asking at least, if not anything, 25 autos and taxis. I saw it stuck on a stretch. It was pacing ten inches a time and then the light at distance will turn Red again. I saw meter ticking and out of boredom and habit made several different calculations around those numbers. It hit me how i am paying so much more for standing there. Then next second my mind, out of the bad habit given by my job, wandered to calculating how much more return one needs to make in each investment to cover this uncalled for cost.
That's when the white fairy propped up from one shoulder and said "look at you!
What's wrong with you. Of all the good things in life, you are thinking investment and returns outside office. If nothing, look outside and appreciate the over hyped rains of city."
And that's when i realized this. Money was not meant to be earned to double or triple; it was to help one meet the needs. When did this process of 'requirement to buy' escalate itself to force one to lose track of how much is needed and do it all the time. It is an addiction, 'how much more you can make of what's in hand.' It makes one forget the purpose.
I see how each decimal, bips and pips make or mar people's lives. How they can spend a full day staring at numbers which are moving up or down and running a vicious book in head of how much was made or broken. And what defeats me is how this is an industry. Till the sanity prevailed in world, people made money from what they worked, they did not make money as their work. And icing is, I find myself getting high on this each day. Not to my liking or disliking-its just happening.
As i write this, its hard to convince myself because its everywhere now. But that's not how it started. That's not how it was conventionally. Imagine in old hindi movie, hero's dad gives his mom's mangalsutra as collateral to lalaji for money. Lalaji 'din't go out to bigger lender to earn better interest or take funding against his asset. Come on. It was simpler. Jokes apart, the more you cascade it, the more money you make, with diminishing rates of return. Everyone is capturing that minute differential and hoping to do it over and over again to make it big
It's crazy. It's addicting. It's diverting emotions to wrong things...Burn out for ten years and then retire is indeed a game plan of most people. Really? Store life? No one can see how flawed this is! You can't lock life in bank vault and redeem it later with higher interest rates. Its not principal protected-unfortunately.
I have no conclusion to this thought. I am very much neck deep in madness myself...
"Money is to be used; people are to be loved. Never confuse the two"
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