There is something deeply exhausting about watching very wealthy people argue about who gets the slightly bigger slice of an already enormous cake. In the ongoing court case over the wealth of the late Sunjay Kapur, when family disputes spilled out in full public view, Judge Mini Pushkarna reportedly observed that God had blessed them with abundant financial wealth and suggested they resolve their differences through mediation.
One can almost picture the good judge adjusting her spectacles and wondering whether she had accidentally wandered into a kindergarten quarrel over crayons. Only these crayons happen to be worth crores.
What fascinates me is not that people fight over money. That is as old as humanity. What fascinates me is that they fight when they already have enough to live three lifetimes in comfort.
If I were presiding, I would have declared a compulsory field trip.
All litigants to proceed immediately to the nearest cemetery or crematorium. Spend half an hour observing. Note carefully that not a single departed soul carried a suitcase, a bank locker, or even a small pouch of coins.
Death has the most efficient customs department in the universe. Nothing passes through.
And yet siblings break ties, cousins stop speaking, children glare at parents, all for a little extra square footage or an additional zero in the bank balance. The tragedy is not the money. The tragedy is the relationships buried long before anyone reaches the cemetery.
In the book of Exodus, when the Israelites wandered in the desert, they were given manna for the day. Fresh supply every morning, like heaven’s own doorstep delivery service. The terms and conditions were simple. Take what you need. Eat. Trust. Come back tomorrow.
But human nature, being what it is, some immediately tried to outsmart God. A few enterprising souls must have thought, ‘What if tomorrow the delivery is delayed? What if heaven goes on strike? Let us stock up’. So they collected extra, tucked it away, perhaps feeling rather clever about their foresight.
By morning the cleverness had turned into compost. The manna bred worms and smelled so bad that even the desert wind must have complained.
I am sure, there is nothing quite like the fragrance of spoiled greed at sunrise.
It was a simple, brilliant lesson from God.
Enough for today is enough.
Also remember in all these fights, children watch their elders quarrel over money and property and learn a curriculum of entitlement. Years later, the same children may apply those lessons with clinical precision to their own parents.
The harvest is predictable.
There is a quiet dignity in saying, ‘I have enough.’
It is a sentence that terrifies greed.
It restores peace to dinner tables.
It allows families to remain families.
Perhaps the wisest inheritance anyone can leave behind is not wealth, but harmony.
Let enough be enough…!
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