Resisting the temptation for more

Every summer, our family returns to our ancestral home — not for celebration but for something that has become increasingly rare in our hyperconnected lives: uninterrupted conversations with our close relatives. There is one simple rule: mobile phones and laptops stay behind. Once the screens disappear, stories return, memories resurface, and wisdom quietly finds its way into the room. We make these visits for another reason. We want our daughters to inherit something no school curriculum can teach — the perspective of those who have travelled far enough through life to know the difference between what is valuable and what merely appears so. During one such visit, my father-in-law offered an image that has stayed with me ever since. 'Imagine,' he said, 'that your life is a boat sailing across a lake.' A boat needs sufficient water beneath it to move freely. If the water is too shallow, hidden rocks and the lakebed obstruct its passage. The water, he explained, represents the resources we gather through life — money, possessions, status, and security. Every boat needs enough water to remain afloat. My daughters were quick to ask, 'But what if difficult times come later? Shouldn't we try to accumulate as much as possible?' He smiled. 'Certainly. Every prudent sailor leaves a margin for uncertainty. Storms arrive without warning. So do illness, setbacks, and unforeseen responsibilities. Saving for the future is wisdom, not greed.' Then came the thought that transformed a simple analogy into a philosophy of life.' But beyond a point,' he said, 'deeper water demands a different kind of effort.' The more we accumulate, the more our possessions begin to possess us. Greater wealth often brings greater complexity — investments to monitor, assets to protect, decisions to make, and anxieties to manage. What begins as a search for security can quietly become a lifetime spent maintaining abundance instead of enjoying it. His words reminded me of my own days as a young Army officer preparing for the fiercely competitive Staff College examination. Long before the Internet placed limitless information at our fingertips, we measured preparedness by the amount of study material we collected. Books, journals, notes, and photocopies filled our shelves. Looking back, many of us spent more time gathering information than absorbing it. For my first attempt, I resisted the temptation to collect more. Instead, I relied almost entirely on the handwritten notes I had prepared during the Junior Command Course, studying them thoroughly rather than widely. They proved sufficient. I cleared the examination in my very first attempt. That experience taught me a lesson whose significance I understood only years later: success often depends less on acquiring more than on making better use of what we already possess. As the conversation drew to a close, my wife shared a deceptively simple formula for happiness: the number of desires fulfilled divided by the number of desires we harbour. Most of us spend our lives trying to increase the numerator. Perhaps, wisdom lies in reducing the denominator. Driving home that evening, I realised the conversation had never really been about money. It was about recognising the elusive moment when 'enough' quietly enters our lives — and having the maturity to acknowledge it. Our age celebrates 'more' as though it were a virtue in itself: more income, more information, more possessions, more recognition. Yet a meaningful life is built not merely on abundance but on balance. Ambition gives us purpose; contentment gives us peace. One without the other leaves us perpetually restless. A boat does not need the deepest waters on earth. It simply needs waters deep enough to sail freely. Perhaps the greatest wisdom is to recognise that, for many of us, those waters have been beneath us all along. advityanidhi14@gmail.com Published- September 06, 2026 04:13 am IST