“Oh the road ahead so tortous and long!
Test you always weak or strong!
Course your quest is to reach the end
But do stop and admire each turn, every bend…”
There was this story I heard which used to be both funny and with a moral!
In fact the story in some ways is actually similar to a theory given by a prominent economist!
The theory is called Easterlain Paradox!
read on!
So the story is how I have heard it while the original versions or other versions may be there! This one my dad used to narrate to me in his Army style!
Once a King hell bent on conquering the world was going through a forest and he saw a Sage resting on the shade of a tree oblivious to everything around him!
The king saw the Sage resting without a care of the world!
He asked him “don’t have any work to do”
S-To which he replied with another question, “What work do you have?”
The King-“I have to conquer the world!”
S-“After then, what are you planning to do?”
K-“Then I have to become the greatest king in the universe!”
S-“After that, what are you planning to do?:
K-“Then I’m going to use my wealth and construct a big Palace!”
S-“After that, what are you planning to do?”
K-“Then I will use all my wells and get a place very close to the river!”
S”After that”
K-“Well, then I will lie down under a tree and rest satisfied that I have done so much with my life!”
Then the sage finally replied, “Well, you can see that I am doing exactly that! You however have a long way to go! Please carry on!”
We used to love this story since it actually told us in many ways that material wealth is not important! But peace of mind!
It has been said that even the richest of the rich are not happy like the king above! They are constantly searching for peace! This unhappiness in spite of wealth is called the Easterlain paradox!
The Easterlin paradox was a finding in happiness economics formulated in 1974 by Richard Easterlin, then professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the first economist to study happiness data!
The paradox states that at a point in time happiness varies directly with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not trend upward as income continues to grow: while people on higher incomes are typically happier than their lower-income counterparts at a given point in time, higher incomes don’t produce greater happiness over time.
That is, in the short run, everyone perceives increases in income to be correlated with happiness and tries to increase their incomes. However, in the long run, this proves to be an illusion, since everyone’s efforts to raise standards of living lead to increasing averages, leaving everyone in the same place in terms of relative income!
Of course this is only one theory and wealth is very important so do not think that finance is not important! Just remember that it is not the only important thing! Once in a while stop being a King chasing after money and like the sage sit below a tree and maybe sketch or maybe write a blog!
Or Just do what you love and then you will be happy, Paradox or not! Maybe sketch, blog or even cook something you like for others! Now cooking reminds me of celebrity chef Vikas Khanna!
Time for the daily relaxation in the dark waiting for sunlight! Or in simple words; sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
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