HAPPY and CONTENT

ENOUGH

An Inspirational Story

By

VIKRAM KARVE


Do you have a capacity for contentment?

Do you know when enough is enough?

I am sure you have read a version of this meaningful inspirational story:

A fisherman lived on a tropical island. He fished for his family and had plenty of time to play with his children, to enjoy the beauty around him and to be a good neighbour.

A yacht arrived carrying a wealthy entrepreneur. The fisherman took him out for a day’s fishing.

As the day went on the entrepreneur looked at the beautiful island with its silver sand fringed with palm trees, the calm blue sea filled with a rainbow of darting fish and saw the opportunity for development and making lots of money.

He was a magnanimous man so he thought he must help the fisherman by offering him the idea, so he said to the fisherman, “Why don’t you build a hotel and encourage tourists to come to the island?”

“A hotel?” the fisherman asked perplexed.

“Yes, a hotel,” the businessman said, “In fact you should build a holiday village with a sports complex so people can come and relax. It could be so successful that you could build an air strip so you can offer the whole package to the tourists so you can cut out the middle man and make even greater profits.”

“Why should I do that?” asked the fisherman.

“You would make lots of money and be rich of course!” replied the entrepreneur.

“How long would it take?” asked the fisherman

“I would think it would take ten years to be really successful,” answered the entrepreneur.

“What would I do with all that money?” enquired the fisherman.

“You could go on exotic holidays to a beautiful island where you could fish, play with your children and have plenty of time to enjoy the beauty all around you” replied the entrepreneur.

“But that is exactly what I am doing now, isn’t it?” asked the bewildered fisherman.


There is a Chinese saying – he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough – so as I said in the beginning, “If you know when enough is enough, you will always have enough”.

Money is like petrol in a car. Money is not the car, money is not the destination. The petrol in your car enables you to go from place A to place B. Now suppose you have reached your destination place B. Now money [“petrol”] will also enable you to go from place B to place C – but suppose you are happy and content at being at place B and do not want to go to place C, is the petrol of any use? It is the same with money.

It would be apt to quote Warren Buffet: “I really like my life. I've arranged my life so that I can do what I want... I get to do what I like to do every single day of the year…”

Dear Reader, may I wish you happiness now and here, wherever you are and contentment with whatever you have.

VIKRAM KARVE

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

vikramkarve@sify.com