The Permanent Solution – 13 (A philosophical short book)

There is a man. He is a worker. His earnings are quite sufficient to run his household and to take care of his family. On day he thinks, “I must start business.” Before deciding on business, he needlessly thought that he was unhappy with his current sate of affairs and should look for more money or higher status. Well, he is successful in business and now has four Mercedes cars and a costly apartment. Still he thinks that he needs to diversify into other venture to grow. Again he thinks exactly same, as he thought before starting the business, that he is unhappy with his current sate of affairs and must look for more money or higher status. What is the conclusion? Desires are like black holes. They will never get satisfied completely. Desires will consume every thing, whatever it may be, offered to them and will be ready with other demands. In other words, before acquiring any object or status, you think those objects will make you happy and you will not need anything any further. After acquiring those objects, they do give you pleasure but it is short-lived and later on it becomes a routine work without any excitement which was present when the objects were new. Yet another important conclusion is, “You needlessly think persons at higher level in the society are more happy than persons at lower level in the society. The reason is, the happiness depends on thinking and the line of thinking of persons from every class is same. They derive equal amount of happiness from the objects available to them.”

Let us elaborate it further. A lawyer saves up money every month and eventually buys a car. The lawyer has a servant. Servant too saves up money every month and eventually buys a bike. Lawyer is very happy about his car. Servant is very happy about his bicycle. Lawyer keeps on roaming unnecessarily to his friends to show them his new possession – the car. So does the servant. He too keeps on roaming unnecessarily to his friends to show them his new possession – the bicycle. After few months, Lawyer has a long tiring drive and he, after getting to home, complains, “Driving car through out the day is too tiring .” His servant too has to visit many places in the city and therefore, does a lot of bike riding. He too, after getting home, complains, “Riding bike through out the day is too tiring .” If you tell servant that your employer is equally unhappy, the servant would react, “You should not play jokes on someone’s misery. He is, after all, having car. He has such a glamorous position in the society. How can he be equally unhappy as I am?”

Although the external positions of the lawyer and the servant in the society are quite a distance apart from each other, their internal feelings are exactly same. You, therefore, must get out of the illusions like, “More money, more happiness. Higher status, greater happiness. More power, more happiness. ”