Tycoon-ism: “Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.” – Robert H. Schuller
Children always like to compare. You can prove this from looking at their expressions when the pizza delivery guy comes with your order. Often, among the slices there is a bigger one. Presumably planted by the pizza company to sow dissent among your family. And as you see their quizzical expression: “who gets the biggest slice?” you scratch your head on this conundrum. If you give it to one of your children then a fight will almost invariably happen allegations of favoritism would be thrown at you, if you take it you become a glutton in their eyes. But, if there was only one slice of it delivered for one child, the chance of her complaining is close to none. She got what she wanted and she’s happy that she’s eating her pizza. Getting a smaller slice only becomes a big deal when she sees her sibling get a bigger slice. Is this not true among adults too? We often want to compare what we have with others too. Come on, let’s all grow up.
Owning things is one of the most sought after pastime today. You see something on TV and instantly you form it in your mind that it would be great to have that. But imagine if you owned everything you beheld. Nothing was withheld from you. How would you react? Initially, you’d be thrilled. But what if you were given the chance to own everything and not just for a day but for an eternity? What would you do? What would you pursue? What would fire up your passion?
The attitude of positive thinking always pays off in the end. Imagine yourself starting an activity with the sinking feeling that you cannot do a good job. Now imagine starting the same with an air of positivity. In both cases, you do the same activity but with different attitudes and with vastly different results. Whether you accomplish your goal or not is not the result you need to see, it is the fact that you did the activity with a light heart and not burdened with depression. Doing something with negativity gnaws at your core and makes you susceptible to diseases; hence you preempt the bad situation even before it has a chance to happen. You form it in your mind subconsciously by your negativity. Remember that your future is clay molded by your thoughts and aspirations. If you continue to go on the path of negativism, then you go on to the path of ruin.
It comes as sudden flash of insight when we realize that all the things that we have are all but temporary. We are given just a few years and then suddenly, we’re gone. We did not bring anything into this world, and neither will we bring anything with us when we die. No material wealth, no writ, no obligations, not even your loyal family and friends can accompany us when we go out of this world. This fact is both comforting and troubling. If we cannot bring any of these with us when we go then what is there to life? We cannot claim ownership to what we cannot fully possess, so why not we start treating our treasures merely as loans instead? Loans which we’ll have to give back anyway. In this way we may be able to learn to be happier because it is only when we stake our claim in things that these things become our masters instead of being our slaves.
In the movie Life is Beautiful the main character, played by Roberto Benigni, excellently portrayed how to live life in the midst of unspeakable cruelty of a Nazi concentration camp. His antics to hide the harsh truth from his son to save him is quite a revolutionary way of looking at life.
