Where are we lost? Lets get back on track

Yesterday I went to Takashimaya with my husband for buying something worthy for the S$ 200 voucher I got from some promotion. We went through all the five levels of the mall but couldn't figure out anything. So we returned back home all fatigued. But I was really astounded looking at the number of people who were there for actually buying the high-end stuff.

Its so strange that we are turning more and more materialistic everyday.There used to be times when we were so tiny and innocent that we never even knew what brand clothes we used to wear. In fact I don't even remember wearing any branded stuff then.We were never bothered of what watch we had. Those were the times when we hadn't even heard of mobile phones. We were quite calm and patient to wait for any awaited news, we even weren't much worried if our near and dear ones were an hour late. We knew they would come back soon ... we knew that they would be stuck somewhere.

Those days were so beautiful .... we used to enjoy the simplest and tiniest things.

I still remember Birla House (gardens) in our town which will always be close to my heart. We used to go there at any hour of the day ...... it was so peaceful to be in the arms of shadows of those lovely tall green trees .. between those beautiful roses ... sitting at the river bank just observing nature, appreciating the beautiful colours, the lovely cool breeze, niticing each and every single audible sound, the rhythmic hu-hu-ing of the afternoon birds which we never saw .... but just imagined that there must be some bird who made that particular rhythmic sound every second.

But, in contrast, today we are in such a hurry, we don't even realise if the cool breeze, that we had loved the most to walk with, is blowing in the evening ( we are so occupied with the routine activities and thoughts and tensions). Instead we prefer to visit the air con malls and spend time and money for so called "branded" stuff and be happy about flaunting it. Today we have become so impatient and anxious that we can't wait for even a second to know an awaited news. We can't even wait for five or ten extra minutes for somebody who might be stuck in a traffic jam ( which we already know somewhere in our minds). We are compelled to make a call asap. Not only this, our tolerance has also reduced drastically. And to top it all our egos have increased manifolds. And the irony is that we don't even realise that we are going farther and farther from the real "I" which God created.

Its not the story of the developed cities. Whenever I go to India, and whenever I visit a mall, its always packed with shoppers. All we do on a weekend is shopping, shopping and more shopping and eating more and more junk food and accumulating more and more plastic bags at home. But is this all taking us anywhere? Oh yes, it is ... to more and more weight gain and more and more health problems waiting for future and more and more attachment and love for all the artificial stuff thereby more and more craving for such things.

I still remember those days when residential apartments were merely 2-3 storied. Lifts weren't used then. And thus it added for a compulsory exercise for everyone. Most of the times people used to go walking to the market or by a bicycle, which again meant more exercise automatically. Unlike today, when we are so much dependent on vehicles, not only dependant, we love to flaunt them.

Those were the times when we were so very involved in our families. We knew each and every happenings of all the family members unlike today when the mother, being working has her own separate world, a father has his own routine and priorities and children are also groomed in the similar fashion of having privacy of their own. Today everybody wants some "personal space" in any relationship. And thus families are getting farther from each other.

I never thought that I would also get painted in the same urban colours in which the entire urban generation is painted with... but ironically, I am. And only I am responsible for it.

We want to earn more and more money to spend on all these materialistic things ...on branded clothes, on skin treatments, on hair styling, on cosmetics, on all luxuries, to buy a house, then a larger house, then a more beautiful house, then a house for our status .... but where has our home got lost in it? Where have our souls got lost in it? The greed for more is increasing and never ending. And everything seems to be a necessity when actually it may not be .... we can even do without lots of such "necessities".

One day suddenly we will be old and start finding all these top priority necessities of today absolutely meaningless then. And all our efforts and attachments and craving for what we what we are doing today will be dumped with the biggest loss of "time" which is never going to return back. Not forgetting the health concerns because of today's lifestyle.

This doesn't mean that we stop using the benefits of science and the latest technologies, but finally its on us of how habitual we get to what. If we keep assessing of where our present is leading us to; in the long run, and keep taking appropriate measures, I am sure we can lead a simpler, more meaningful and satisfactory life till the end.