We are pushed to a point where we value material things over people. We forget that things and money are supposed to be used, not loved. They should serve us, not control us as if they are our masters.
WHENEVER I give human resource trainings, I never tire relating the following captivating story:
While a man was polishing his expensive new car, his four-year-old son picked up a stone and scratched lines on the side of the car.
In anger, the man took the child’s hand and hit it many times, not realizing he was using a wrench. The child lost the use of all his fingers due to multiple fractures.
At the hospital, when the child saw his father, with painful eyes he asked, “Dad, when will my fingers grow back?” The hurting father was speechless. He went back to his car and kicked it, again and again.
Devastated by his rash violence, he sat and looked at the scratches, and for the first time he noticed what his child had written, “I LOVE YOU, DAD.” End of story.
Inarguably, it is easy to see the father’s violent outburst as a spur-of-the-moment reaction. But it is also as easy to see that his reaction was triggered by an “over-possessiveness” with something material and worldly – in this case, his expensive car – which blinded him into “deprioritizing” his love for his child.
This is what happens when excessive “love” for material things – not excluding money – prevails and becomes an obsession.
We are pushed to a point where we value material things over people. We forget that things and money are supposed to be used, not loved.
They should serve us, not control us as if they are our masters.
The same thing happens when we de-value people over material things, we tend to see them as mere commodities or objects to be used.
In my years of employment in several jobs – both private and government, I have seen how cunning employees ingeniously climbed their way up to the top USING OTHER PEOPLE AS STEPPING STONES. Peers are friends so long as they are yet “useful” or beneficial to one’s interest.
This lends some truth to the observation that the upward “steps” in a corporate ladder are no other than people being used or manipulated.
Some describe it as the “I Use You – You Use Me” (gamitan) strategy for corporate success.
Sadly but true, in our rash concupiscence for material success, we sometimes forget the lofty tenets that we ought not just work for a living, but for significance of fulfilment in what we do; that we ought not just work for results, but for affirmative relationships that bring out positive results.
Verily indeed, people are loved, not used; and things are used, not loved.
Tags: #commentary, #columns, #InspiredandBlessed, #relationships, #materialthings