Adam Smith gave the world the Paradox of Value wherein he explained that despite water being essential for human survival, we value diamonds more than it. So to speak, we pay manifold times the amount of money for diamonds than for water even though we very well know the importance of water. But what if we were to forget that money existed ? What if the world was being simply run on our desire ? Would you still choose the diamonds?
Before we accept that we will choose water over diamonds, let us know why need money?
Beyond using the currency to buy ourselves that pack of Lindt or a bottle of Jacob’s Creek, money helps us pay for the electricity, the roads, the education, the house and practically everything we can see/touch/feel around us. (Obama used the money for the ‘clean air’ he got himself!) But the key word we are missing is ‘need’. Is all that we want in life also something we need? Ask yourself, you will know.
Nations have been long collaborating and growing with the exchange of money in the economy. The rich have become richer and some nations have pulled themselves out of a poverty trap. I don’t intend to say that all this is futile and shouldn’t have happened. But what I do wish to mention is that I don’t think everybody enjoys what they do.
The Venus Project, is an organisation that probably comes closest to achieving a way of life that doesn’t entirely depend on the much relevant monetary system of inclusion & exclusion. It seeks to garner skills and abilities of different people and make everybody move towards holistic development with equal right to resources.
From another perspective, without any money, we wouldn’t indulge in reckless competition and the reigns of the world wouldn’t lie in the hands of the financial superpowers. If we can learn to introspect and motivate ourselves to pursue something that is essentially good and needed, we could probably move towards a harmonious lifestyle.
The greed for power, thirst for luxury and enmity for being better than others has made us lose the quality of compassion and love for life. While this may sound like a philosophical article, one can not argue that the inherent human nature is one of togetherness and affection. Our ability to communicate and express ourselves and execute ideas is being overpowered by the emotion of being selfish. Ask yourself, if your pay-check for that job was as good as the money you would get for painting your impressions, what would you do ?
This article is not a recollection of proven facts. This is an attempt to make you wonder and urge you to introspect and ask yourselves the real reason for happiness. In the humdrum of complex lives, most of us tend to go with the flow. We stop asking ourselves what we want and rather start chasing what the world thinks we should want. This is an idealist theory in all terms but isn’t it a good assumption to make to understand yourself better? Maybe what you wanted all this while was a biased wish and now you get a chance to find your calling ?
Money is important. But so is being alive and happy. Dreams that bloom from a wish that is going to make you happy without prioritizing money is a dream that is worth chasing. When you do what you love, you do it best. And we all get rewarded for our efforts. Ambition shouldn’t cloud who we really are and a good way to start is to take a pause, ask yourself and find the answer.
Picture Credits- Google images
By Pratishtha Khattar
