Is Prosperity Really a Blessing?
Is Prosperity Really a Blessing? by Mathew C Ninan, Brahmavar-Udupi
Brahmavar-Udupi: Relatively speaking, today’s youngsters enjoy so many facilities which were not available to the earlier generations. As society progresses it is quite natural that the quality of life improves with each succeeding generation. There is nothing wrong in this per se. What is disturbing today is the negative impact of the prosperity that the present generation is heir to. Children and youngsters are lavished with goodies which are actually not of enduring value to them.They know ‘the price of everything but do not know the value of anything’. This is the present situation.
Parents are making a colossal mistake in giving their children whatever they want, without considering whether they need them or not. Children do not understand the value of the different gifts they get because they get them without yearning for them. Parents think that they must provide their children everything the children demand in order to prove their love for the children. Parents also rationalize the situation. They think that they themselves could not have access to many of the gifts that they give their children now. When they could not have them and now when they can afford them, they want to provide them to their children and derive a vicarious pleasure in doing so. Secondly most parents derive some ego-gratification by providing children whatever their peer group possesses.They want their children to be on par with the rest of them. Does this not amount to snobbery? Is snobbery or vanity a virtue?
Parents fall into this trap of vicariousness and ego-gratification and the price they pay for this is really huge. Children are lavished with all sorts of fripperies and goodies, and they discard them after the initial excitement. Such indulgence and pampering also result in wastage of hard-earned money. Such children who are petted and pampered by their parents grow up to be wayward and undisciplined. They learn to value nothing. They develop an attitude of indifference and arrogance because they have everything at their disposal and their parents are at their beck and call.These parents also think it’s their duty to shield their children even when they go wrong, or do something really bad.
Children who are idolized and not corrected and disciplined during their formative years turn out to be rude and ill-mannered in later years. By the time the parents realize the gravity of the situation it will be too late. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to guide their children to the right path. If they fail to do it, they would be culpable. There is no excuse for the abdication of their responsibility. Let’s remember that more children are ruined by plenty than by impoverishment today. While impoverishment motivates children to do better, plenty lulls them into complacency and arrogance.This reality must not be lost sight of.
Children also develop a sense of ‘boredom’ too early in life.They experience some kind of weariness or ennui with the world around them. It’s because they don’t have to yearn for anything. All desires have been quenched. Nothing is left to aspire for. There are no more dreams. What’s life if there is nothing to hope for, or dream about? This is a very dangerous tendency. The sooner the elders realize this, the better for them.
Materialism is destroying more societies than poverty. The lesson we must all learn and teach our future generation is that ‘man cannot live by bread alone’. There are higher goals in life than earning a high income. While wealth is not bad in itself when it’s legitimately earned, it’s certainly bad if it’s not earned by the sweat of one’s brow. Ill-gotten wealth is surely not something to be proud of. A distinction needs to be made between the two. Our future generation should be warned against the tendency to worship money, and understand that it’s not the be-all and end-all of life.There are greater and nobler causes that constitute a good life. Money or riches have never brought lasting happiness or contentment to anybody in this world. In fact if the happiness quotient can be measured, we would find more unhappy people among the rich, than among the poor.
Shouldn’t we see the writing on the wall?
by: Mathew C Ninan, Principal, Little Rock Indian School, Brahmavar, Udupi Dist
