I came across with this phrase online, it is something like this…
“I must work hard, because the things I want are expensive”
I have come to realize that no matter what we do, be it striving for social status/fame, or even working hard to obtain the so-called first barrel of gold, our end goal is nonetheless the same, which is to be always happy, happy in the sense that we will be completely free of sorrows and conflicts that are mostly caused by the deficiency of what we desire (so we think). Most of us choose to gain the leverage of being ultimately happy by the same means, we strive for the tangibles according to what society has laid down for us, we modify ourselves to earn as much as possible, but at the same time, in the process of working hard towards achieving what we think can provide us with the bliss that we have always wanted; in reality, the outcome is often disappointing and is always incapable of giving us the long-lasting happiness that we long in the first place. So, the sentence above comes into place to justify our endless striving and it seems to imply the appropriateness of us wanting to spend in expensive things. First of all, I am not advocating the lying-flat culture where one is doing absolutely nothing nor am I advocating the obsession with gaining psychological security through compulsive working, what I want to do here is to question the attitude towards what we normally call “striving for a successful and wealthy life”.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live a successful and wealthy life, but it is problematic when our desires are getting enlarged immeasurably, and that is why even we are living an above-average life, where all basic necessities are well taken of, we still feel the need to work harder and harder to achieve a higher level of success; and that so-called level of success is merely a state encompassed by expensive/extraneous things that we think we want. Ironically, we feel it is totally not okay to not work harder to achieve the never-will-get-achieved-state that we long, why is it that it will not be achieved? Because the moment when we are progressing towards the “goal”, our desires are also being simultaneously piled up by social influences, when we did get to that state, our piled-up desires prompt us to do more and more. But on the other hand, we feel it is totally okay to have our desires gone wild like horses on the grassland (what the fuck?). When people who have everything to stay alive and healthy and have an additional freedom to do what they please are lamenting about being poor, it is never because they are actually “poor”, they are indeed poor, poor not in terms of financial situation, but in terms of the emptiness of their heart that will only get satisfied by having more desires.
The so-called successful figures often look down on people who are easily satisfied, they call them cowards for not getting out of their comfort zones, but it seems to me that people who are trapped in the loop of endlessly achieving and striving till the last day of their life are indeed the pitier ones. Because their life is all there is, without a sense of complete fulfillment.
It all boils down to our negligence of the importance of our inner richness, and we end up buying happiness with money, and that’s it! That’s all we can do. I wonder how is it enough when the emptiness inside our heart is an endless devouring pit?
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend to travel not just for the sake of expanding horizon, but to escape our boredom that will still stick with us even after our trips?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend on beautifying our face and body, because we have nothing to offer on the inside?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend not according to our own charisma, but social commercialization? And we think that’s what we want?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend on eating fabulous foods that will eventually harm our body? And we do not even think of exercising our body?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend on things that we think are normal, but extravagant to other?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we numb ourselves with alcohol and nicotine, but not with silencing the mind with meditation?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend on houses that will allocate more than a thousand people, but in fact there is only us who will live?!
How is our money gonna be enough when we spend on one cloth that can feed a hundred poors? Our body is even disfigured (due to excessive indulgence) to have worn that cloth?!
Yes, we can all do these things, but please, it must come from a serene and tranquil heart that is filled with compassion and acute self-knowledge and awareness, if not, we are only some fancy walking-deads who think they have conquered life. When in fact, life is laughing at us for being so entangled with things that can’t be brought over when we die.