“The parliamentarians are greedy for their perks; Servants are greedy for their salariesMillionaires are greedy to become multi-millionaires and others are living in cowardicePeace. This is a dance of demon which leads to the destruction of society.”
-Anonymous
It has been rightly conveyed in the above quotations that individual’s greed for materialism or lure for high lavish living always takes society to the verge of extinction. If we compare the cited quote above with today’s context; all our personal, family, social, national, international, economic and environmental problems are due to lack of morality and values in our lives.
Now, the question arises, what is Morality? Morality is simply the standard that operates on the human conscience to monitor and control thought and behavior. Morality comes in the form of sympathy, empathy, moral philosophy and adopting laws and traditions, it is what regulates our behavior.
Morality is directly hindered by our temptations for getting more and more things or materials. It would not be false to say that today we all are addicted more or less to this materialistic pleasures, this has eventually lead to deterioration of individual’s moral standards and we have started exploiting more and more resources.
Due to our insatiable appetite for material consumption, global problem of unequal distribution of wealth has aroused. Due to haphazard exploitation of resources the benefits of economic expansion tends to be severely unequal in India as well. There are number of multi-millionaires coming up in India at the cost of poor and underdeveloped masses. Our society has become more demanding in respect of mercenary comforts.
Our addiction to materialism, has forced us to make ourselves feel better, however any happiness we get is usually temporary as soon as one “high” wear is off, and we go in search of another “fix”. We are becoming psychologically dependent on our favorite sources of pleasure it may be anything from food, cinema, television to shopping; whatever it is we get off-on and the ever present problem of habituation means we need higher-higher doses to achieve the same effect.
Our ever demanding nature has given rise to all time stress which we feel every now and then. Stress level charts high as when, We are not able to fulfill our own appetite or the feverish thirst for more and more physical materials. Thirst for material comforts are everlasting and the negative attitudes such as jealously, enmity, hatred, anger, discrimination, exploitations, corruption, temptations etc. are off-springs of our extended use of worldly materials.
The present materialistic tide can be turned off only by the introduction of moral consideration into global economics that can bring both peace and prosperity to all; it must have a moral base which can be implemented with right conscience.
To throw some insight on the judicious use of resources or right moral consideration I would like to narrate an incident which happened in recent times in Germany with Indian Students.
Germany is known to be highly industrialized country. It produces top brands like Benz, BMW, and Siemens etc. Few Indian students happened to visit Hamburg City in Germany.In the City, they visited a restaurant and ordered for the food, the food was served to them instantly. As soon as they finished the food they heard someone calling them and asking them to stop for a while, all the students came back to the manager of the restaurant and saw few old ladies who were sitting next to them while they were dinning, these ladies were complaining to the manager about the food which was one-third in proportion left unconsumed by the students. The students as a usual practice in India offered to pay for the food which was unconsumed, however the old ladies were quite furious on the students and one of the ladies immediately took her hand phone out and made a call to someone. After a while, a man in uniform from the Social Security organization arrived. Upon knowing what the dispute was, he issued to them 50 Mark Fine.
The officer told to the students in the authorative tone that:-
“Order what you can consume, money is yours but resources belong to the society. There are many others in the world who are facing shortage of resources. You have no reason to waste resources.”
This particular incident teaches us the lesson that even though you can afford to purchase more number of resources; it does not essentially mean that you can waste it. Wasting more and more resources in whatever se
nse it is, it makes an individual corrupt in his practices in long term. The main reason which can bethought behind corruption is that People in general today, have a great thirst for luxuries and comforts and as a result of which they get themselves involved in all unscrupulous activities that result in monetary or material benefits.
Moral consideration seems to be only way out to make people understand not to indulge in corrupt activities. Moral consciences need not to be just limited to text book teaching but it has to be extended with right conduct in our day to day life practices.
The essence of the economic virtue of Non-Possession of materials which essentially deals setting a limit to one’s own needs and desires must be widely practiced. Any surplus accumulated beyond their basic set needs and desires should be disposed of through charities back to the society. By limiting one’s property, check in the concentration of wealth is possible and it paves the way for its wide and more even distribution. Non-possession is the only means whereby the growing gulf between the rich and the poor can be peacefully bridged.
On concluding note would like to share Gandhiji’s idea on greed, whichsays, “In this earth there are sufficient resources for one’s need but resources are deficient enough for one’s greed”. In present scenario wastage of resources are their zeniths, so there exits moral lacunae which can only be filled with judicious use of all resources available to us.
Nice Thought of you ……..