Value of Life...

We human beings have been given the faculty to see and classify things and objects according to their “value”. And many times things are of importance or no importance to us depending on their capacity to satisfy our needs. We have spiritual and material needs: the crucial question is: which of them do we prefer to satisfy first? We can see the interplay of material and spiritual values in the following case study. A company made a survey of two groups of people who were asked about the most important goal of their lives. Their answers were the following:


Group 1
Architect: to have more projects that will permit me to have more money.
Engineer: to develop systems that will be useful and thus easily be sold.
Lawyer: to win more cases and have a Mercedes Benz car.
Manager: to make business more profitable.
Athlete: to gain fame and worldwide recognition.


Group 2
Prisoner: to walk freely in the streets.
Blind: to see the light of the sun.
Deaf: to listen to the sound of the wind.
Mute: to be able to say to persons how much he loves them.
Invalid: to run in a very sunny morning.
Persons with AIDS: to live a day more


Group 2 persons desire things that money cannot buy while those Group 1 wish money and fame, having already the things that money cannot buy. Many people have immense riches which money cannot buy and do not appreciate them, seeing their “treasure” in things that have a price and which can be bought by money.
Healthy people take foe granted their sight and hearing until they become deaf and blind, and thus, starting their dream of being able to hear and see. We need not label the people of Group 1 as “bad” while those of Group 2 as “good”. But at times, it takes a serious sickness for us to appreciate what we are: the God- given gifts which we have taken for granted because we have them from birth. Fame and money are the obsession of the healthy, but once they lose their health, these two easily disappear. Money and Fame belong to the world of “having” which many times contradicts the world of “being”, but experience teaches us that many times, we are engrossed in the world of “having”. The world of “being” refers to ours spiritual needs, while that of “having”, to our material needs. The crucial question is: how can we be more spiritual in this world glutted by greed for material possessions and well- being? Do we need to lose some of our physical qualities like our eyes and feet in order to understand their importance?