Of late, the one thing I’ve learnt is that a successive stream of accomplishments can make a person over-confident. And most certainly arrogant.
Just so proud of all the fantastic feats that lay behind one’s path; a towering symbol of one’s sheer and utter greatness.
Success. We all yearn for success. We strive for it. Kill for it. Die for it. Yet success isn’t necessarily life-long, nor is it necessarily the be-all and end-all to all that we hold dear in our long odyssey through mortal existence. For the masses out there who trudge along their daily lives, inconsequential to the eyes of the great and mighty, just the simplest of pleasures might just as well suffice. And so what if a ten-cent cuppa coffee can bring to someone as much as what it would take a million-dollar Rolls to do for another?
I am reminded to what an elder once shared with me, this one little nougat: just as quickly as life could turn for the better, fortunes could just as suddenly turn for the worst; life is long, its course circumstantial, and its bearing unpredictable.
But perhaps even not. Maybe one could be rock solid after all, having had it all nipped in the bud. Gotten everything nailed to the last detail. Maybe one is invincible, and truly untouchable.
All the same, there is ultimately a price to be paid. Most would lose their humility. Likely first to go would be one’s humanity —which is perhaps the one quality we should hold on to most dearly, for what are we without warmth and compassion?
Animals...
What must it feel like to be worth well over half a billion? What would it be like to be worth that amount, and see your life-long friends, comrades and the ones you treasure most struggle even to meet ends meet? Just what must it feel like to be filthy rich and not lift a finger for anyone?
What must it be like to be great and successful if you haven’t a trace of your soul left at the end of that line?
Regardless of where you go or where you're from, joy and fulfilment are universal and fundamentally the same for the haves and the have-nots. Those of us wealthy of accomplishment or cash may certainly be arrogant and overbearing, but remember that life is long and winding, and one might never know if someday you find yourself out in the city streets, without a home, without a living, without a life, and without even a sliver of your humanity left.
