I recently visited the bank with my mom for some personal work. We were about to leave after we finished with our work. It was then we overheard the bank manager illtreat a man. We reached out to him to ask about his problem. The man replied that someone had withdrawn 8000 rupees from his account without his knowledge. When the man had come to enquire about this, the manager screamed at him and told him he had to log a complaint using the customer care number and they couldn’t do anything about it. But the man was illiterate. He couldn’t understand what the manager was saying, he didn’t even know how to contact customer care. He kept visiting the bank for a week, but no one helped him. There were many people in the bank but no one stepped forward to help him. When I and my mom heard his story we immediately stepped forward to help him. When this man was suffering so much, why wasn’t there a single person who could spare a few minutes and help him? Is this really difficult? Why do we overlook all these issues? Don’t we really feel anything when we see someone suffering? Is it because we think, “It’s none of my business” or “I already have too much work on my bucket list for the day, I don’t have time for anyone else”? This lead me to the quest for the essence of being human, in fact, a good human being.
We all have an innate drive to get the next big thing in life. In this process, we forget to reflect upon all the things we were blessed with and give away at least a part of it to the lesser privileged. I believe being human isn’t just existing or living only for yourself or your family. The essence of being human goes far beyond just thinking about ourselves. It’s about how we use our knowledge, our intelligence and our experiences to bring about a positive change. It’s about every little thing that we can do to help someone in need. It’s about how we make the best use of the luxury we were gifted with and extend at least a speck of it to others. It’s about understanding someone else’s pain and telling them that you have their back. It’s about having empathy over sympathy.
No matter how far you get in life, what really matters in life is whether you are a good human being or not. Even when you die, no one is going to remember how successful you were, how rich you were or whether you got your dream job, the only thing that matters is whether you were a good human being or not. It is important to remember three things in life:
- Each one of us is blessed with something, be it a lavish life or quality education or it could be anything. We have these because we were meant to help the not so privileged category and not just to satisfy our selfish needs.
- Every time you get a chance to help someone or every time you have something that the other person needs at the moment, don’t walk away from it. Take this opportunity to put your knowledge or power into use and the satisfaction you would get from that is priceless.
- Before you start your day, tell yourself that this is the last day of your life and you want to make the best out of it, give back to the universe and be grateful for everything you have attracted into your life. This will help you lead a more wholesome life.
