Successful Life, Unsuccessful End
A certain man wanted to make a lot of money. He thought that with this money he could obtain all the pleasures of the world. He earned a lot of wealth. He built a grand house. He accumulated all sorts of items of comfort and luxury. Yet, he did not obtain true joy. Then, he became old and bedridden. In the last phase of his life he wrote in his diary: “Now, I am 90 plus. My story can be summed up in these two phrases: successful life, unsuccessful end.”
This is the very same story of many other people who are called ‘achievers’ and ‘super-achievers’. People who are said to have scored big successes in the eyes of the world only acquire little joys, mixed with much frustration, and finally depart from this world in despair. This phenomenon is so general that there are very few exceptions to it.
There is a famous singer, who is now almost 100 years old, who is regarded as a top achiever. In her life she got all the things that many people hanker after—wealth, fame, popularity, honours, and so on. She also got to travel the world. But now, in the evening of her life, she feels that she didn’t get many of the things she wanted. Despite her external successes, she lives in a state of dejection. Some years ago, an interview of hers was published in a newspaper. The interview was tellingly titled ‘My dreams have never got fulfilled’. When the interviewer asked her that if God were to ask her what, having arrived at this stage of her life, her greatest desire was, she immediately replied, “I would like to leave this world”.
In this failed story of a successful person there is a very big lesson for everyone. And that is, the ideal happy life that many people spend their entire life trying to obtain is simply not attainable in this world.
To have desires but to be unable to fulfil them all in this world indicates a big reality—that the ideal joy that an individual seeks to obtain in the pre-death world has actually been placed by the Creator in the post-death world, the Hereafter. This being the case, the wise thing for us to do is to make ourselves eligible for being successful in the post-death world. We should put ourselves to preparing for the eternal life that comes after this temporary world.
By birth a human being is an idealist, but in the present world, everything is found in a less than ideal condition. This is the actual cause of tension for people. People devote all their energies only to acquire something that turns out to be less than their ideal. To understand this difference between the seeker and the sought is the greatest wisdom. One who understands this difference can realistically plan his life and course of action and then arrive at the plane of success. Such a person will never live in tension.
