The most common crime we commit as humans is neither murder nor deceit but mixing up means with ends. And in that sense it is the most perfect crime because neither the perpetrator nor the victim realize it was an err committed.
As you walk through the first steps of life you are taught many important values by your society: your parents, teachers, friends, relatives, community and generally the people you rub shoulders with everyday. But we always fail to realize the true worth and purpose of the values we are initiated in. And it takes the greatest of our values and brings them down to the level of traits and oddities of an individual. Take hard work for example. We have always been taught that 'Hardwork pays'...but for what? For whom? In what manner? These are subsequent questions I have seldom seen posed by people. And so we continue to work hard, earning every penny for our family and children and without realizing that it was just a means to your end of seeing your family happy and secure. But it is no guarantee of happiness if your hard work is concentrated only in earning money and not in things like developing yourself or spending time with the family for whom you work so tirelessly.
And in this subtle confusion lies the answer to many a misconceptions we carry. Mixing up means and ends results in us having this false sense of entitlement to the good things of life because we have acquired certain things. Let me be very clear here, I am not discrediting the role of something like education as a requisite to leading a good life but it is not a guarantee. Same is with wealth as a means for being wealthy or religion as a means for being spiritual. The best way perhaps to look at them is through the view-glass of probability. They do increase your chances, even significantly in many instances, but ever so often you would hear of cases where life has gone terribly gone for someone who has immense wealth, knowledge or faith.
Perhaps the only things that can with great certainty guarantee us of happiness and thus justify themselves as means and ends is Love and Fortitude and to lead a life filled with it. Funny thing is that these 2 things are tougher to earn than wealth, trickier to acquire than knowledge and harder to believe in than faith. But you can be rest assured it is a bloody good measure for us to know the way we have lead our lives: the way we have loved & been loved and the fortitude we built within ourselves and those around us! And you will know how rich you really are!
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