How much is enough?

What am I thinking? I don’t know. In fact, I think I have stopped thinking. I seem to be becoming more of a worldly person. Sort of settling down. Bigger flat on rent to accommodate my siblings and spending money frugally and budgeting every single rupee.

Don’t know what really is going through my mind. I worry a lot about what is left in account, how much do I owe, how much do others owe to me and how can I get it back, do I have back up for emergency, can I afford a car right now, should I get a sofa set, a refrigerator, etc or should I wait a bit. I never used to think this way. Something seems to have happened to me. I am also thinking of accumulating more and more things. My mind is always involved in making schemes so that I can make money or invest somewhere which can give good return.

And, there happens to be a tremendous surge in these desires whenever I happen to look at those small EMIs on online shopping sites tempting me and telling me that I can afford those expensive things. That it is good to enjoy even if it means to be in debt.

May be these thoughts were always inside me, maybe I was just deceiving myself into believing that I am untouched by the temptation of material accumulation. Don’t know.

Yet, despite of all this, it just takes a moment to break this delusion of happiness, of this dream of material comfort to fade away like wisps of smoke, if only I happen to put my gaze into those cramped and filthy shanties, full of labors and their family, spread outside my apartments, with no sanitary arrangements and with no light or water supply. The very people who are directly laboring and working to create these apartments do not even get enough so that they can at least manage a decent way of life.

Who is responsible for this? Me, who is wondering how to get more material even after having enough to live and survive or the one who lives in shanties and cannot even make sure that his womenfolk & children have access to safe toilets?