One time, a very dear friend gave me a cashmere pullover with a matching sweater. It was my first-ever cashmere! In my lifetime, I’ve tried on cashmere sweaters only a few times — while on holiday in Scotland and Wales, specifically in St. Andrews which, I understand, is some sort of a Mecca for golfers.
I also remember having had the nerve to try some cashmeres in Paris, where they are said to come in the best colours and styles. (But of course! The French always try to outdo the British, and vice-versa. This amusing rivalry has been going on for centuries. Hence, one drives on the left, the other on the right.)
But each time I was tempted to get myself a cashmere sweater, I had to fiercely fight off the urge because it was just too expensive for me. I kept thinking: how many times could I wear them in the Philippines? And what if they got “hole-y” from being stored too long?!!
What a waste. I was inconsolable when my favourite wool sweaters mysteriously developed little holes in them, as if they had some inexplicable, exotic disease. There I was — disconsolate about my hole-y sweaters. How pathetic. I had become a blubbering idiot, a slave of my possessions. What I owned actually owned me! And so it is with titles and positions.
Most of the things we own, use, and keep have expiration dates on them. Medicines expire.
Food spoils and rots. Skin wrinkles up. Muscles sag. Machines break down. Things rust, erode, fade, wear out, thin out, mold over. Human beings age, become decrepit, disheveled or diseased…and die. Power, position, fame, looks, money, allure, brains, etc., all decline, dissipate and disappear one day. Pretty much everything has an expiration date. We just forget this crucial fact in the madness and busyness of life.
One of the things that I’ve watched lately with an inordinate amount of interest is the rise and fall of people in power (or those who strut about pretending they have power). They all have expiration dates. But most of them are absolutely clueless about this. You’ve heard the dour saying: “The higher the climb, the harder the fall.” Or something like that. But you get the drift, right?
It’s very easy to let success and power go to one’s head. The current phrase “strut your stuff” captures it so well. Why, some people undergo some pretty shocking transformations after they’ve had just a little taste of power! A once-humble, self-effacing, accommodating fellow can suddenly morph into a cocky, arrogant, I’m-too-busy-can’t-you-see caricature of his old self once he gets a high position or a fancy title. Sometimes power is just a matter of semantics and an over-active imagination.
I’m reminded of this man and his wife who had businesses on the brink of bankruptcy, a marriage hanging by a thread, houses and cars being foreclosed, and a tsunami of debts just waiting to drown them into oblivion. Of course, they were the talk of the town — how their sudden, meteoric rise to riches was as abrupt as their steep, shameful fall into bankruptcy. They had enough problems to warrant a double suicide. Thank goodness, the thought never crossed their minds. Some may call that resilience. Others may call it a primeval instinct for survival.
It doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that they did a wise thing: they went for marital and financial counselling, and did as they were told. It required painful, humiliating steps: selling almost everything at a loss — their houses, cars, jewelry, properties, and businesses — so that they could pay their debts. They drastically down-scaled their lifestyle, moved their kids out of private schools, rented a small apartment, and kept only one car: the cheapest and oldest one. Slowly, they rebuilt one business after another. Slowly, they completely got out of debt. Slowly, they moved their kids back to private schools. Slowly, they regained the trust and respect of their community.
I wish I could say they lived happily ever after, and that they learned from their mistakes. But I cannot, and they did not.
As their fortunes improved and as their stature rose once more, people thought that they had learned their lesson. The couple seemed less materialistic and ambitious. They maintained a simple lifestyle — much less expensive than before they filed for bankruptcy.
In fact, they became involved in spiritual things. They also became active in local politics.
Eventually they became leaders in their church and community.
But the sad thing is, their old, consuming lust for power and money just transformed into a new, consuming lust for position and power in a new environment: church and politics.
Their old appetites just looked for new things to devour.
So now, the man struts his stuff in his newfound territories, his new corridors of power.
Once again, he is “just too busy” — too busy running after titles and territories to fill his gaping need for security and significance.
Once again, his family and marriage are on hold, and eventually will be at peril. His wife is looking increasingly weary, sad and disconsolate. Her husband has too quickly forgotten the depths to which he had once sunk, and the people who had helped him get out of the deep, dark hole he was in.
I call this “gratitude amnesia.” How quickly we forget the people who’ve helped us, once we’re back on our feet again!
In a few years, if things don’t change, this couple will most probably go through a repeat-crisis: marriage on the rocks, kids in trouble, and a host of new problems arising from their new, uncontrolled appetites. They have a new expiration date, but they just don’t know it.
How about us? Do we have an expiration date, and are clueless about it? Are we prone to repeat-crises situations because we just refuse to learn our lessons?
When we let success (whatever that means for each one of us) go to our heads, we have just stamped an expiration date on our foreheads. Success is a brutal killer if it comes with Pride.
