GREED-THE WORLD’S BEST ILLUSIONIST

Good morning fellow toastmasters and guests. Let me begin my speech today with a story. Vijay, a young lad, 15 years old had gone to visit his uncle Ranjit, a forest officer, in Port Blair in the Andaman islands. One fine morning, vijay, his uncle ranjit and mito, their helper set off in their raft on a journey into the forest. Their weird objective of the day was to catch monkeys from the wild. During the journey, uncle ranjit asked mito to teach vijay how to make the monkey traps. Mito took a sailor’s knife which was placed amidst a heap of coconuts and started puncturing the coconuts one by one and started to drink the sweet coconut water. After draining the coconut of its water, he stared hollowing the coconut making a small hole on the top. Vijay also started following the same procedure on the remaining coconuts and in the end they had a bunch of hollow coconuts ready. After many hours of travelling they landed at a deserted island at around 4pm in the evening. They travelled well into the dense forest and started setting up monkey traps. They started filling the hollowed out coconuts with a mixture of jaggery and boiled rice and the coconuts were chained to a stake, which was driven firmly into the ground. By this time it had become dark and the three of them then started to set up camp. After sometime the heard a noise at the place they had set up the traps. They had caught their first monkey. I had got stuck with one of its hands inside the hollowed out coconut. By midnight they had managed to catch three monkeys. Dawn broke and uncle ranjit started explaining to vijay why the monkeys got caught. He told that the openings in the coconuts were only big enough for the monkeys to put their hands in, but not big enough for its fist filled with the jaggery  to come out. The monkey gets trapped, a victim of his own greed, until captured. He is forever a captive of his own greed. Uncle ranjit then enquired about vijay’s parents. Vijay then told him that they were working all the time, travelling very frequently and attending corporate dinners etc. He also told that Sundays are the only holidays they have and they sleep the whole day as they are extremely tired after a whole week of hectic work. If they don’t sleep, they go to play golf with their bosses or attend corporate seminars. Uncle ranjit then pointed out that vijay’s parents were like the monkeys, trapped in the golden cage called greed due to their desires of coming first in the rat race. They may be earning 6 digit salaries but do not have and feel the essence of life.   This incident turned out to be the turning point in vijay’s life. His uncle, being the most intelligent in the family could have easily become a doctor or an engineer or could have landed in any high paying white collar job. But he chose to become a forest officer as that was the job he loved. He did not want to lose the essence of life in the greed for money, power and prestige and get caught in the trap of greed like the monkeys did. Greed is like an illusion, like a mirage,  it always makes us to foresee and feel that a bright and glamorous life lies ahead of us. But the truth is very different, the truth is very harsh and ugly. In the end, we do end up with lots of money, power and prestige but we lose the main essence of life, namely happiness and peace.

            How many of us are like those monkeys, trapped in the cage of greed? How many of us are frantically running in the rat race? The sad truth is that most of us, including myself are indeed like those monkeys, caught in the trap of greed and running pointlessly in the mad rat race not knowing where the finishing line lies. The true fact is that the finishing line never exists. We endlessly and pointlessly keep pushing the finish line farther and farther away as we progress through the race due to our greed. We actually never finish the rat race till our last breath due this very reason. Even if we miraculously finish the race, it is too late and by that time happiness and peace are lost.

            My dear toastmasters, there exists a very thin line between need and greed. We must discover that line and must master the skill of balancing out life on that line. It is actually better to fall on the need side rather than the greed side but balancing on that line gives us the essence of life. We must be able to make an accurate estimate of what our needs are. Some of us are contented with 1 crore, some with 10 crores and some with 100 crores. The need differs from person to person but we need to keep in mind that we must never dilute happiness and peace in the pursuit of money because that’s what is called greed.

            If you cannot estimate your need then there is a simple way to find that thin line between need and greed and decide on your long term life framework as told by my boss during my internship. Finish your highest level of educational qualification, be it M.S or MBA or PhD, before the age of 27. Join a company or any firm, slog hard and work your way up to the top position before the age of 40. Maintain your position and become the czar in that field before the age of 45. By this time you would have earned in millions, or even billions. Step down from the top job, become an adviser or a consultant and start enjoying the rest of your life with your family. In this way you would have satisfied your needs and also will feel the essence of life namely happiness and peace, in plenty. So my dear friends, life has only two paths, the path which satisfies your need and the path which satisfies your greed. It’s up to you to decide which one you are going to take.