DO WE MISS WHAT WE NEVER HAD ?

DO WE MISS WHAT WE NEVER HAD?

On the face of it the question looks superfluous. Yes, of course we always miss what we never had. But why?  Barring, perhaps for food, we do not really need anything, else not clothing, not even shelter. Early humans lived liked that. Animals still do. A new born child also does.

These days  Chitrgupta Park, my walking abode, is getting face lift.  Daily wagers have  parked there in the vacant land, living with their families in make shift plastic huts they have built for themselves. While they are busy in working in the park or other daily chorus, their kids move around in tattered clothes laughing or crying unmindful of the fact that there exists a world totally different from theirs where there is everything that a human can aspire for comforts. They do not miss any of these comforts because they have not had it so far, that is.

These kids have never experienced those comforts and may never will. Like their parents they will also grow up, toil as laborers, have families and their kids too will also be moving in tattered clothes unmindful of modern day comforts. It will be only during those growing up years that they will envy those who enjoy a life that they will never have and sooner than later they will, like their parents will accept it as their fate. They will then never miss those comforts because they never had it and will never have it.

It therefore appears that we miss only what we had. The more we had, the more we miss. The less we had, the less we miss. The more we miss, the more envious we are of those we who have. The less we miss the less miserable we are. Outwardly it may look that those we have less are more miserable but the opposite is more true. On closure look the ‘haves not’ seem to be laughing their way all the time and the ‘haves’ grumbling most of the time.

The true happiness lies in cutting down on our needs and sticking to the bare minimum.

At contrast to the daily wagers above,  I know such a couple who lived in all comforts till their fifties and have now settled in a village cut off from the hurly burly of town and city life, with a thatched hut with bare minimum possessions, growing their own food in the farm they have purchased, no electricity, no fridge, no gas connection and only a BSNL mobile connection to keep in touch with the outside world.  They seem to be quite happy.