Dear Readers,
While glancing through the newspaper my eyes rested on an opinion piece called ‘If you got it flaunt it, if you use it, you lose it’ by a famous columnist. Now, this article was talking about pure economics, but it took me to my childhood where it proved quite instrumental in dealing with societal pressures. The societal pressure that I am talking about is – showing off candies. I was such a show-off as a kid. I would save all my candies in a box and never eat them, just so that I can flaunt it in front of my friends.
There is an economic term called ‘conspicuous non consumption’ which means that you deliberately do not consume a product to prove a point. I deliberately refused to eat my candies to make my friends envious of my collection. But there was a catch 22 situation here. (Catch 22 means a seemingly impossible situation e.g., chicken and egg problem – If you say that chicken came first - where did it come from? And if you suggest that the egg came first - who laid the egg?) My problem was that if I eat all my candy, I will not have a collection to flaunt anymore. But this also keeps me away from candy which I really want to eat because they are super tasty. Decisions! Decisions! It made my life very hard. I would spend every waking hour thinking of my candies. It took my entire will power to not eat them. I was too proud of my stash.
While proudly exhibiting it in front of my friends, I overlooked an impending threat, which led to my downfall. I missed that danger is always lurking in the shadows. After all, history has taught us that a kingdom’s downfall always starts from home. Be it an envious stepmother or a greedy brother, one should always access threat from within. By the time I remembered this valuable lesson, my sister had already eaten half of my stash.
Enjoy the edition!
Priyanka
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