My Golden Cage

Every morning when I wake up, first thing I do is to go to balcony and soak in the sun, the noise, the smell of the city. These few moments give me some “me time” before I start my day. View from my balcony is nothing spectacular, no views of mountains or sea, just a typical view of middle class neighborhood of the city with nothing more on show than building and back lanes. I am usually accompanied by one of my babies as you can see in picture below.

Apology for quality of the picture, my trusted designated photographer has done below average job this time :-)

Last week while I was in my balcony, I could see balcony of my neighbor and I saw they had a cage outside with colorful small parrots. Looking at the parrots in a cage in neighbor's balcony, made me realize that these parrots and I are just the same, only difference is, my cage is bigger.

World that I live in is my cage, size of this world is not governed by physical boundaries but by what I make this world to be. This world for me could be as small as distance between my work and my house. As we would not know for eight minutes after our sun has disappeared, likewise I would not know if everybody outside my 50 km radius world disappears. Try not to take this message literally, but imaginatively. My 50 km radius is what my cage is, I live inside it, and my last two years have been within this 50 km radius.

Whatever happens outside of my cage and if it does not affect my 50 km cage, I would not care much about. War in some country, who cares. Famine in some country, who cares. Natural disaster with enormous loss of life, not my problem. Do I care? Not really.

So when do I care? I only care when something rattles my cage, when my way of life is disturbed. If my car breaks down, I care. If my favorite restaurant is not delivering food, I care. If I cannot find my favorite brand of coffee, I care.

Reading this may make you think that I live a meaningless and shallow life. If you think that, you are correct and I agree with you completely. I will refrain from generalizing this concept; this could offend people if I say this principal is same for most people.

In some ways we are worse off than the caged birds, we can escape from our cage, we have the option but we do not. We may leave our cage momentarily but we are back in our cage soon enough. Birds do not have a choice, they are victim of inconsideration of human beings, and unlike humans, if given a choice, birds will almost always prefer to be free.

So why am I in my cage? What is keeping me in my cage? Complacency, comfort zone, greed for money, could be any or all of these things; none of these constitutes a higher purpose of living. Question than arise if I want to live for a higher purpose? Or I am suited for low-level existence. High or low level of existence is independent of your wealth; it is to do with what you do; and not what you earn.

Take an example of general manager of a trading company, he/she has many employees and his/her company’s turnover is in millions, for me this is low-level living. A nurse walks in the heat to go to hospital, make fraction of what the general manager makes but that is high-level living.

Nurse is going to save lives, he/she is going to treat someone’s illness, ease someone’s pain, similarly a teacher will share knowledge, work towards making our children better human being. A vet is going to ease pain of an animal, a volunteer in a hospital or school, anywhere for that matter decides to spend his/her time selflessly to benefit a stranger. That is a high level of living, that existence has a purpose, has meaning, which is much bigger than my existence.  

Do we need to become a medical professional to have a higher level of living? No; that is not the intent. What we have to do is to come out of our golden cage and find a higher purpose of our own. Share what we have, not only our money but more importantly our time. Find pleasure not in the best house or best car etc, you can have that but also share what you can.

Being a good considerate human being is probably one of the toughest thing these days, as a race we have become consumed with money. We all like to say repeatedly that we came empty-handed and we will go empty handed, but do we really believe in it? It is truth, a fact that we do not believe it. Our every waking moment is focused towards earning more money, our goals our targets are promotions, better car, holiday home etc. Most of us including myself do not spare a thought on how our purpose is so shallow and meaningless. If we wholeheartedly believed in this fact that we will leave empty handed like we came, than we would all choose to live a different life, a high-level life.

Most people consider doing good deed as a trade. I will do good here, I will benefit in afterlife, as I will be rewarded. Keeping religion aside, is that the right motivation? Should your good actions be a trade? doing good in life with expectation of reward? Our aim should be higher, much higher. Do what you want to not for expectation of returns but do it because it is the right thing to do. 

High level or low level of living, where do you stand?