I was with my friend to do some shopping for the birthday party of his son. Being the third party of his only child, he seemed very excited and jubilant. I was thinking it to be something simple: go to a shop and buy few things and that was all but at the end, it turned to be more lengthy, sophisticated and time-consuming. First, we went to a shop where a special dress was ready. The dress was ordered a few days before and just like the dress itself, its price was also special. Then we went to a shoe store from where an exclusive pair of shoes was bought. From another shop, we collected the cake and other edibles and when we lead our way home; there was almost no place on the back seat of the car. While he was doing all these, I was busy in observing him and his behavior and I was also getting confused with all these. I knew him personally and also knew his exact monthly income and all these expenses were not in accordance with his income. He had almost spent the half of his month’s salary. Though he was happy and excited, but a strange color waved on his face whenever he had to pay for the things he had bought. It looked to me as if he was getting a bit concerned about the rest of the month in which he had to manage all his expenses with the money equal to what he had spent in one day only. It was a happy occasion for him but the resultant consequences were also taking away his happiness and peace of mind.
A friend of mine joined a new office. This well-reputed organization paid well to the employees and so all the employees tried their best to appear fantastic by wearing new suits, matching shoes, elegant watches and things like these. This is a good trend and shows the global and professional approach of the organization but here, it was turned into a kind of unseen race between the employees. Every employee wanted to appear better than the others and they spent large amount of their salaries on these expenses. Anyhow, all these things were absolutely new to my friend who was a bit puzzled as how to react. He used to wear normal suits but he had started developing the same feelings that had infected almost all the employees. But then he observed an absolutely different case. A foreigner also worked in the office but unlike the locals, he seemed absolutely indifferent to these things. My friend found him wearing the same coat for six consecutive days of the week. But more interesting was his behavior; he appeared absolutely calm and confident and gave no importance to the stupidities happening around him. This example made my friend realize that true confidence lies in once inner feelings and not on how people might think about you.
Our lives are full of similar stories when we spend more than our limit and resources and in the end, fall into difficulties. Starting from a person earning even less than 200 dollars to those who earn more than 5000 dollars in a month, all of us are in difficulty to manage our expenses. This might be an exaggeration if I include all the people in it, but it is a fact that majority of people are in this situation. All these are happening due to a fact that we don’t have the sense of ‘QANAAT’ or ‘feeling satisfied with whatever we have.’ This is such a proven and useful idea that can save many of us of the financial difficulties. It means, ‘to be satisfied with whatever we have, thus cutting the basis of further needs and desires and learning to be happy with our present possessions.’
In Turkey, there is a very famous mosque by the name of ‘Sanke Yedim’ or ‘Think I have eaten.’ One day, a saint developed a desire to eat something very delicious from bazaar. He had money in his pocket and when he was about to go and buy the thing, he thought with himself, ‘What would happen if I ate this? I would feel the taste of it only for a while and it will be all over’. Instead of eating it, he assumed as if he had eaten it and put the money back in his pocket. Later on, he stretched this habit and started feeling the same whenever he wanted to spend some money for something. In this way, he saved a large sum of money and then spent this money to build the mosque which has been named after his strange and amazing habit.
One of my best friends invited me to dinner. I knew he had recently lost his job and his financial conditions were going a bit tight. Anyhow, I agreed to go to his house only on a condition that he would not spend too much on different formalities. For this, he took me to accompany him for his shopping. We together went to buy the fruit. He went to large number of fruit-sellers and he knew the art of buying the things on a reasonable price. He bought the fruit on a price which I could have never bought. Then he went to a vegetable-seller for buying salad and once again, his intelligence impressed me. He not only bought them on a cheap price but he bought according to the needs. When he bought fruit, salad, yoghurt and all the necessary items, he had spent a very reasonable amount of money and he had bought so many things as well. There I understood how people manage to lead a good life in their limited incomes.
But this is not the case with the majority of people. Majority of us are in habit of spending carelessly, making unnecessary and irrelevant purchases and ending up in financial troubles.
Our religious saints have a lot to say and advice in this regard. They say, ‘the desire for something sprouts in your heart and if you don’t give attention to it, it dies away but if you keep feeding it, it gets mature and covers your life and thoughts. Then you become like an addict and all your feelings, emotions and thoughts become attached to this desire until you don’t achieve it’
‘There is no full-stop for your desires. If you have a bicycle, you desire for a motorbike and if you acquire it, you wish for a car and this list keeps going until a time comes when you become absolutely buried under these desires and they enslave you in their grip and turn you into a machine to work for them incessantly.’
‘If it is not in your hand to increase your income, it is definitely possible to cut down your expenses.’
Our society has been declared one of the most corrupt societies of the world. Our wishes and desires are increasing and we utilize all the means, legal or illegal, legitimate or illegitimate, to attain these desires. Everyone, even our children, is getting addicted to this style of thinking. We do so to show ourselves superior, we do so because we care as how others might think, and we do so because we have never thought of doing the exact opposite. We have not learned that, we can have peace of mind and real happiness by controlling our desires and not by following them. Because of these desires, we face many embarrassing situations and yet we have not understood. For a society with limited income like ours, the only way of long term survival is being economical and controlling expenses.