While trying to take a rest from a hectic week of meeting clients’ deadlines, it started me reflecting about putting too much time and energy on my work. Yeah, I needed to make a living. Then what?Is there all that is in a man’s life? To toil, toil, and toil, in order to find rest at the end of the day? Spend his spoils and toil again? Ah! Forgive the pun.
Is there really a higher purpose in these things?
I just remember Leo Tolstoy, one of my favorite authors, told the story of a rich man who was never satisfied:
He heard of a wonderful chance to get more land. For a thousand rubbles he could have all that he could walk around in a day. But he had to make it back to the starting point by sundown or he would lose it all.Pathetic huh. Incidentally, the title of this story was, “How much land does a man need?” Tolstoy concluded the story with an answer, “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”
He rose early and set out. He walked on and on, thinking that he could get just a little bit more land if he kept on going on. But he went so far that he realized he must walk very fast if he was to get back in time to claim the land.
As the sun got lower in the sky, he quickened his pace. He began to run. As he came within sight of the starting place, he exerted his last energies, plunged over the finish line, fell to the ground and collapsed. A stream of blood poured out of his mouth and he lay dead. His servant took a spade and dug a grave. He made it just long enough and wide enough and buried him.
The point here being is, life is not about sweating more and gaining more, but living with what we have with joy and contentment. For in the end, we brought nothing into this world and we’ll surely leave without nothing but a fading memory to those who knew us.
What matters most is how well we lived.
Am I making sense? What do you think?
Hello,,,it amazes me that even then in the time of Tolstoy that people's greed was already in full control of what they thought would bring them true happiness. We look around us today and we find that we have landed on a material world. A world of a desensitized and detached generation. These children are our future. They know no self-gratification other than those of speedy technology and conveniences that help make life even easier. I remember reading an article bragging about this new futuristic house,"The Smart House'. This house basically did it all for you by a small command. That was a few years ago when it still just a mere gleam in the eyes of man's advancements. When I read that, I was horrified at the thought of life becoming so simple. No challenge at all. Just push a button and poof it is done.It all sounds so nice and relaxing doesn't it. But with that follows even more desire to do nothing, yet have everything...why is that? Once life has no more reason or challenge, what's to wake up for? This is exactly why people still do net get it. Happiness is where the heart is...bottom line. It is inside of who you are..search there if you want a true happiness...one that is real and will not tire, get bored and strive for yet an easier, more material so called feeling of self-satisfaction!
ReplyDeleteLeo Tolstoy...you go:)
Have a very positive day!
DorothyL
I agree with self-esteem blog that life during Tolstoy has the same greed as people of today. I wish we can feel satisfied with what we have and live happily with less. Unfortunately, it's in our genes that we're compelled to go, go, go. We're never satisfied or feel content, so, we toil, toil, toil. Such a sad situation we're in. Even though we realize the madness, we still keep perpetuating the same lifestyle. Crazy, isn't it?
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