The Greatest Superstition of Our Times

There are two kinds of superstitions which have been haunting mankind since Adam ate that goddamn apple: harmless and harmful. Suppose we are leaving our home for office, and somebody sneezes. We stop and wait for a while because we think it’s a bad omen. No problem! Not much harm is done. Actually we end up having a couple of minutes to relax in these time-starved times. Now suppose we are going on a street, and a black cat crosses our path. Our love for the idiotic notion makes us stop again for the same reason. Again, it’s a harmless situation. So, there are more and more examples in which we stupidly flirt with our superstitions, but come out with no serious damage.

Then there are superstitions which are harmful, and that too to such extent that they complete rob us of our happiness. But we hardly care for them. We have so much faith in them that we rarely think that they are superstitions at all. On the contrary, we, the logic-minded human beings, treat them as gospel, as the golden rules which make the world run and as Brahma-vaakya (universal truth). One such popular superstition is the topic of discussion here which has contributed in the overall unhappiness of us more than anything else has ever done.

Yesterday, most of my colleagues at office had gathered around to do the favourite antidote of work stress: gossiping. We started off with the past experiences of every participant in his/her previous offices, and then sailed through the problems we were having at the workplace, the demonic attitude our boss had towards us and the places we were thinking of applying for. Then all of a sudden we moved towards an issue which is considered to be a little secretive and to be done in whispers: our salaries. The simple statistics of the digits everybody was getting on his paycheque brought forth a startling revelation I have always heard about but never believed.

The workaholic ‘go-getter’ guy who used to swear by the dictum ‘Work is worship, and money is its prasaad’ was living the most screwed-up life out there. His family life was as good as Gujrat after earthquake, and his mental condition indicated the urgent need of consulting a competent psychiatrist. He had a purse heavy enough to balance the load of the bills of the costliest restaurants in Delhi, but his digestive juices failed to cooperate even with the simplest dishes available in a roadside dhaba. He was the earliest to reach the office, and the latest to depart. In harsher words, he had no other life beyond the doormat of his office. But look at his tenacity; he was working harder and harder to increase the load in his bank account, ignoring the hardships taking their toll on his life as a whole.

On the contrary, the man getting the least salary was having a life which could make the director of my agency- the guy I just talked about in the preceding paragraph- dead jealous. That peon had a good family life, a good stomach that allowed him to enjoy even the most ordinary food in the best possible way, a sense of humour that made people make beeline to him, and some free time to do the things he really enjoyed doing. One of them was listening to Radio Mirchi.

So, the revelation was, money doesn’t make us happy. Money is like a joke, we love playing on ourselves, which gives a great buildup but fails to deliver a good punchline. It’s a superstition we have more faith in than a priest has in his stone deity. We hardly find a living example where this superstition has kept its promise. Still, keeping our all logic aside, we invest the best and most of our time in running after it, amusing ourselves with the thought that it can compensate for everything we are losing at the cost of it. Little wonder, many of us feel so empty, so unhappy despite the flashy clutter we have earned paying too much of a price.