Thinking about Contentment
Most of us are very ambitious when we are young. We are ambitious to achieve some sort of success. Most often this success is to become much more richer (monetarily) then we are. So,whether our ambition is to become a doctor, get admission in an IIT or IIM it is primarily driven by the common sense that people who have succeeded in such ambitions have become much more richer. We seldom aspire to become a good human being who is happy even without becoming more rich, say a leader like Gandhi or a inventor whose efforts contribute towards the well being of masses.
Contentment is most often preached by religions and people active in it. For example, in Bhagwad Geeta, Lord Krishna said: Those who have found pure contentment, satisfaction and inner peace are fulfilled." It is often preached that one must be content with the current state of life and then aspire to improve oneself spiritually. But a content person often becomes lethargic without a drive in life. Real life demands a lots of drive to engage in a particular activity with lots of energy.
So, the question that arose in my mind is " Is it more advisable to be content rather then ambitious?"
What is the amount of money that would be sufficient for an individual to live comfortably. Of course the amount will depend on the number of dependents and the location where one chooses to live; nevertheless I think there must be an amount beyond which money may lead to a more uncomfortable social life for a human being living in a particular society.
Let me detail the background. A predominant section of students pursuing an undergraduate course, would be inclined to believe that the amount of money they are likely to earn in a science profession, would not be sufficient for a comfortable survival. What they perhaps consciously or unconsciously ignore is the fact that a very large fraction of our population lives happily earning much less. Does a greater earning power always lead to greater happiness. In other words, is it necessary that a career in IT or management (that supposedly lead to higher earning potential) would leave to a happier life.
That may lead to yet another question.
What is happiness? What for does one needs money? The basic needs for living are food, clothing and shelter. In addition one needs money for medical treatment, education and entertainment.
Let's consider each of these needs in some detail. The food that we need to consume for living does not have to come from a swanky restaurant or a fast food parlour like McDonals, KFC or Nirulas. In fact one can have much more healthy and satisfying food at a fraction of price.
Same is the case with clothing, Does one really need the branded clothes?
Shelter, not everyone can live in the centre of the city in prestigious colonies, because of the limited area. If one chooses a slightly less paying job, like teaching etc one can often get subsidized accomodation that is close to the place of work, hence one can save both money and energy required for daily transport.
As far as education of the kids is concerned, the money saved from the tution in a prestigious public school can lead to less tension for earning more money leading to more time one can spend with family and saving the medical bills too
Is the ability to consume as much as one desires leads to greater happiness, then being a bit more social conscious and helping a few human being around you to overcome the shortage for basic necessities of life?
Can a person consciously consuming less is less happy than one who is always striving to have more and more consumable goods and services.
A friend once told: A very complicated question indeed! In my experience I have found that most people do not seek an absolute, frame independent lifestyle but rather seek a richer lifestyle than their peers. Happiness, to most of us, can be equated to other people's misery. That is why most of us indulge in useless criticising so much. Other people are always described as greedy, unscruplous, haughty, shallow, stupid, sycophantic, and in our kinder moments, just plain lucky (implying that they do not deserve what they've got)! When I was young I used to believe that in science I would find people who are different but I have learned otherwise.
Money is not the only issue, although, if you have enough of it you can stop worrying about it, and that is some kind of bliss. I too have heard that poor people in our country live a happy life. This may very well be so, especially given the fact that Hinduism almost sanctions keeping these people at that level citing their past karma, and perhaps they too believe in it to resign themselves to their fates. I do not believe that there is anything specific that you can say about temperance that would apply to the masses, unless they are deeply religious, in which case they can be brainwashed into believing anything at all.
However, what applies to most may not apply to individuals and I have met several sage like individuals in my life. Some of these people seek absolutes and are therefore unaffected by their peers. A test of such individuals is that they do not condemn extravagant lifestyles since their happiness comes entirely from their own inner being. I am greatly interested in systems that would produce people of this sort. However, our competitive examination system breeds the other kind of individual whose primary goal in life is to do better than the rest, irrespective of how they are actually doing. IITs use a relative grading systems where you cannot even say that you have got a distinction in an 'absolute' sense since if there are ten people above you then you are not going to get an A.
I have heard about a test where people were asked which one is better
1) You getting Rs 10,000 and your equals getting, let us say, Rs 9000 or
2) You getting Rs 11,000 and your equals getting Rs 12,000,
Most people choose the first. Of course, if you change the numbers then answer might be a little different. The marginal cost of losing out to your peers while having an absolute advantage must be some measurable number. The point that I am making is that it is not a small number and therefore my answer to your question is that the amount of money required to make us happy is the amount that compares well with your peers first, and then secondly it should be large in an absolute sense. Just the absolute sense is not enough to decide on this number.
Here I quote a small piece from an article that appeared in Times of India, Delhi Edition, about two years ago:
The second view, call it the old world idea, claims to be more alert to the destructive powers of ambition - and cautions against giving it free play. Individual ambition is Promethean, and carries within it, the seeds of failure. A country like Germany, for instance, is haunted by the historical memory of such ambition in the first half of the twentieth century - and has since worked to curb the hubris of political leaders, in favour of less world conquering collective and social goals. This view can slide into complacent conformity. In its creation, modern India embodied a unique, third way - a way that is lost in the oversimplified story we tell about our origins. The foundational legend we are all taught emphasizes modern India's creation as a pure act of the moral imagination: the idealistic conviction, spread across the land by Mahatma Gandhi, that we could win our freedom by peaceful persuasion, and that that freedom was only worth winning if it would transform the lives of the very lowest. But modern India was also a product of intense political ambitions. Individuals like Nehru, Patel and Bose each had a strong will to power, and they maneuvered fiercely to acquire it, even as they sometimes cultivated attitudes of diffidence and indifference towards earthly success. As they jousted against the British, they jostled with one another for advantage. Independent India was thus an unusual combination of moral sympathy and political ambition. Its important to remind ourselves of this complex inheritance of ours - especially at a time when we find it convenient to paint the past as a period of moral idealism, and the present as one of self interested expediency.
Rakesh Mohan Hallen