Are You Earning To Live Or Are You Labouring In Vain?

Not rarely do we hear people scream “vanity” whenever someone has died and left large amounts of assets behind. We look upon mansions, luxury cars and mind-blowing sums of money and cannot help lamenting that all these now amount to nothing as far as the dead is concerned.

If all we labour to earn in this life will end up as vanity, is it now correct to conclude that we in the world are ultimately labouring in vain? But wait, what do people often mean when they scream “vanity” upon encountering such scenarios painted above? Of course, the answer is simple: they are lamenting over the needless acquisitions made by the deceased. The lamentation is not about the money the dead spent feeding themselves, not about expenses incurred seeing themselves and their children through school, or about resources spent on healthcare, on clothing, on leisure or on other needs that make life good and enjoyable. No, the scream of “vanity” is directed towards the excess acquisitions as manifesting in uninhabited mansions, unused or under-used fleet of luxury cars, idle millions or billions in bank accounts, and all such superfluous luggage of assets that adds nothing to life except pandering to one’s ego and sense of class. This is the vanity we all lament.

Resources spent attending to one’s real needs or those of others cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be termed vanity given that they have been applied to the purpose for which they were made by nature and providence. Providence has placed us in this temporal realm, hence our efforts at sustaining our individual existence and happiness in this realm ought to reckon with the temporal nature of our sojourn here. As such, while pursuing wealth, we should bear it mind that it is just for satisfying our immediate and temporal needs, and that it is useless outside serving this purpose. So, it does not make moral sense that we depart this temporal realm leaving behind resources that ought to have solved temporal needs, unless they have been left behind to solve the needs of other living persons – their NEED and not their GREED. (It is necessary to differentiate need from greed here given scenarios where very wealthy persons leave behind so much wealth for their children as though they were born not to work to fend for themselves. Of course, such wealth, by virtue of its sheer magnitude, is not just serving practical needs, but more visibly, is a means of demonstrating and sustaining class. In such families, the death of any surviving offspring who inherited the family wealth is always an occasion for lamentation of “vanity” simply because every such son or daughter invariably inherits idle wealth, hence inheriting vanity).

If very wealthy persons are giving out their excess wealth, suffering would have been drastically reduced on earth. But then, what such people give out as charity are mere crumbs from their infinitely opulent table, which accounts for continued existence of idle financial and physical assets all over the world.

The psychology of possession is this: the more you own the less you can let go because you want to own more. This why it is very easy to offer another N50 when all you have is N100 but indeed an unwinnable war against your greed if you have to offer N500 million from your N1 billion savings. The two scenarios amount to giving out 50% of your wealth, but the difference is that in the former you have less and so are less greedy but in the latter you have so much hence cannot let go. “AMOR HABENDI HABENDO CRESCIT” – The love of having increases with having.” This is why anybody who is able to do the latter will be celebrated as a rare humanistic hero.

It is in view of the above that I’m least impressed when people attempt to justify too much acquisition by arguing that such wealth is necessary for doing charity – wealthy people rarely give as much as they should. There is enough to take care of the basic needs of everybody on earth, but truth is that so much of the wealth of the earth is concentrated in few hands. I once harvested statistics on private wealth that currently exists in the world and was amazed at the proportion of this that is in pockets of few people. I was also amazed at how much each of us will get if the wealth was to be distributed equally. Thus, if wealthy people are giving enough, millions of humans will not be going hungry everyday, millions will not be dying due to inability to access healthcare, and millions will not be homeless.

My sobber contemplation on the greed-inducing effect of having so much in the face of the moral duty to give which nature has placed on the shoulders of wealthy people makes me to always tell myself that what is best for me is to have what I need to solve my needs and let God help others to also have theirs. I’m not too certain as to my ability to do what the majority of humankind, living and Dead, are yet unable to do – remaining contented in the face of so much wealth such that one is able to stop amassing but rather give out all excess resources as they come. I feel it was this moral burden that the Master, Jesus Christ, had in mind when he stated that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven! Wealth corrupts virtue.

Now the final admonition is this: Earn money to solve needs so that upon your death, people will behold a man or a woman who lived, laboured, earned and attended to personal needs and perhaps needs of others, rather than one who amassed vanity thereby labouring in vain. Ask yourself; “Are you earning to live or are you labouring in vain?”

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University,, Awka, Nigeria.