Food for thought

Food for thought

I saw a Facebook post the other day that had me wondering…..
This was a picture – a picture of some fancy dishes ordered at a fancy restaurant, and wanted to share this great news with the rest of the world. It just got me thinking – the food ordered once consumed is nothing and the picture, to me, represented more a remembrance of the impermanence of all the things transitory. So maybe it is okay to take pictures of your new sports car you purchased or the plush bungalow that you had recently built? You want the world to know what a sensational success you are. You hope that these people feel a bit of envy and post you in the pedestal above them. This lasts, until someone else posts something slightly better, leaving you feeling belittled.
This truly is the reflection of the brevity of all gains. I watch every day, someone very dear, slip down an abyss. Someone who wanted to build and own an empire. At 91 years of age, one slip of her feet and a fall. Her pains had begun. With a hip bone fracture that required a major surgery, following which she lost her reasoning and lives in a hospital room, with none of her glory to help her. This is the story of my mother is the evenings of her life, and struggling. This is an eye opener for all. I wonder whether a picture of some fancy dish, she had in a fancy restaurant would have made any difference to her in this shape.
I seek not to pontificate. We all like to be happy, and we all like others to know we are happy. We all like to be successful, and we work hard towards it. Once achieved we want all around to know that we have succeeded and respect us for it. All this is understandable. But it may also do us good to remember that once the glory of the moment has passed us by, there is nothing more about it. We need money and prosperity to live well, to bring up our children and hand some legacy to them, so as to make life a wee bit easier for them. Yet it behooves us better to remember that good education, life skills and a socially acceptable behaviour would be a better legacy than any wealth you can hand over to them.
We all need a roof over our head, to sleep at night, and protect us from the elements. We need neat and clean clothing to wear and we healthy wholesome food to eat. We need medical care and education. We need awareness of the happenings around. These are need that you cannot be without. But do we really need a huge and unwieldy house, with more space than you can manage? Do we need showy, uncomfortable clothing to show those around? And do we really need the unhealthy, food that leaves you unwell in the end? These are some questions that you may, very well ask yourself. These questions may make you think differently, if you have half a mind to consider.
Not that socializing is evil. Nothing that is done with some amount of restriction and reasonable contain is okay. It is when it is done with the purpose of gaining respect from other, put the envy in their hearts and give yourself that collar up feel that things tend to turn unhealthy and unbecoming. It just needs you to be restricted in the levels of outreaches and showiness.