Greed is good ?

Greed is good.

'How much land does a man requires'  written by Leo Tolstoy in 1886 was in our High School syllabus. The protagonist, a greedy farmer, negotiates a land deal at a very attractive price with the condition a laid down by the owner that at sunrise he can start and cover as much land as he can and returns to the starting point before sunset and the land so covered will be his. He starts at the sunrise as fast as he can and goes east, around turns to left and then again to left and finally to the left towards the starting point. Realizing the sunset is approaching, he speeds up and somehow makes to the starting point only to drop dead. His servant dig s a six feet grave and there he gets buried.

At that time, it was difficult to understand the message. In face we used to laugh on his lack of proper calculation of time and energy. He could have easily done some mental calculation in advance counting his steps, say if 2000 steps took one hour and so he could at best do 20000  steps in available 10 hours roughly. Again, say, each step measured 2 feet, he could have been the owner of 4000x 4000 = 16000000 sq/ ft of land. Please do not challenge me on these calculations. I am very poor in maths.

But that was then. We were young, in our teens and it was easy to make fun of anything and everything. Later in life, the dynamics changed. It is not possible to do advance calculation of what will happen tomorrow. We become greedy because we do not know how much will be enough.

This happy go lucky family was leading a very satisfied life. The family head  Mr. X had a good job, savings were good and added to that was the retirement funds. All children settled in life, good retirement fund and regular interest income, what else they needed. As a precaution, they had taken a medical policy also.

And then the thunder struck. Mr. X was diagnosed with kidney ailment. For a few months he was on medication but then the doctors recommended dialysis, first once in a month, then once in a week and then alternate day. Two years passed and one after the other the deposits were prematurely withdrawn to meet the expenses. Their children also chipped in. They had to take a mortgage on their only two bed room flat. After six years of trauma, financial, mental ,emotional he succumbed.

This is only an example. There can be N number of eventualities. Modern day life is different than the life our fore fathers lived. I remember having hearted - he was a very lucky man. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. But that was long back and in a country side where regular health check ups after a certain age were not heard of. Had there been these facilities, he would have been treated of his blood pressure, diabetes or heart problem well in time. He could have possibly lived longer and who knows much longer on life support.

Here arises the question, how much is enough? Why people need to save for future? Why people to amass as much they can because future is uncertain? Is greed is good?

Gita says to remain calm and satisfied with what comes with our honest and genuine efforts. This is the moral ground. We should not use unfair means to amass wealth but if it comes with our honest and genuine efforts it is always acceptable and welcome. This means that we should keep on augmenting our efforts to earn more and more to accumulate more and more.

If the above s greed , then, greed is good. The most certain thing abut this journey of life is that it is not certain. If the journey is not certain, the means to make that journey comfortable can also be not certain.