Don’t Auction Your Principles
View(s):Yesterday, at my cousin sister Sherin’s wedding, I met a very old friend of mine who was well aware of my disastrous past. He invited me to join them for an alcoholic drink. Very humbly, I said that I do not take any kind of drugs at all. In another five minutes another friend of mine who is also aware of my past came and asked me if I would join them at least for a glass of beer. Life is full of auctions. Just as every other situation in life, I was left with two options to choose from. The first option was to auction my principles, which I had treasured for many years, just so I could receive the acceptance of others. The second option was to reject the acceptance of others and treasure the principles that I live by.
You need to be wise in understanding that the majority of the people will not accept you for who you are unless you have something to offer to them. Nobody attempted to invite me for fellowship when I did not possess anything. Now that I am a CEO and a successful personality, everybody appreciates my presence. Acceptance is freely available when you have something to offer others in return. Nevertheless, if you do not have anything to offer, they are not at all interested in giving you any recognition. The acceptance of people is like chewing gum, it only feeds your ego for a while, and leaves you with a chunk of useless things in your mouth, things that are worthless for your growth. Living on your own principles should be the lifestyle you should take enormous pleasure in. Therefore, I humbly told the second person who invited me for a glass of beer, that for the past years I have completely rejected all forms of drugs and other instant pleasures which once destroyed my entire youth.
Will any of you ever exchange your gold jewellery for worthless imitation ornaments that are only bigger in size than the real gold you possess? Or would you ever consider exchanging the fresh fish you just purchased for an expired tin of canned fish? If you place so much importance on your food, how important should the life principles that produce happiness in your life receive? Following the rejected offers made by my friends, they may have mischaracterised me by stating what life is without some fun. Yet as per me, I went home with great self-satisfaction as a free man. If I had not done so I would have gone home as a slave who sold his invaluable principles for a glass of alcohol. Fun is defined based on your perspective on life.
It is extremely sad to see how many adults are inclined to sell their standards and the joy of their loved ones for something that will be discarded from your body as vomit, urine or stool just as a betel chewer spits the betel out. Initially when “Sella” the bicycle repairman near St. Mary’s church offered me heroin for the very first time, I auctioned my dreams and my father’s dreams for just twenty-five bucks ( a packet of heroin was 25/- at that time). The day I began begging near the William grinding mills junction, I realised what a horrible auction I have made by selling my entire youth for just twenty five bucks.
Your principles are what makes you a man or a woman with life, but if you decide to sell them merely to attain an hour of pleasure, you will result in being less than a man or a woman. Acquiring life is having peace of mind. A person who has auctioned his freedom of mind for slavery will never be able to attain peace of mind. Once you have sold something you felt needed to be gone, the very next day morning after you have sold it, you may feel completely miserable. A foreground for an auction is prepared when you no longer focus on being happy with yourself. A lot of people expect happiness to be externally injected whereas it will only be available internally.
Some time ago, I wrote an article called “Do you have coffee with yourself?” It was written with the same intention of encouraging my readers to spend more quality time with themselves rather than seeking joy from others who you could never trust. If you really love yourself for who you are, then you would certainly treasurer your standards at any cost. Do not mix up things that do not dilute your originality. One fine day it will make you a person who is alien to you.
At the age of twenty eight (28), I realised that I was not the Philip Nehri that my teachers at St. Joseph’s College had known, lived and admired. I realised that Philip Nehri has auctioned his soul at the Dehiwala Waidya Road for just twenty five rupees. Who exists now is a puppet also known as Philip Nehri. Yet, the soul is owned by a third party force. You must realise that from the time we wake up in the morning until we go back to bed at night, we will be facing a countless number of situations that will require us to auction ourselves, where we must choose either our principles or our temporary comfort.
I have seen managers who receive highly paid salaries auction their honesty just so they could scroll through FB or YouTube during 70% of their working hours. I have also witnessed that many government officials auction their conscience for a bribe that will certainly not be retained within them. Vendors who cheat on their consumers, sell what they could have expected as a “blessing line” into a “curse line” by cheating on the money of the poor customers. Since they earn this money by offering pain to others, the money they earn will also be a pain to them.
The world works in a highly technological manner just like a chemistry formula, what you get will be based on what you put in. If you sell honesty, you will reap tears. If you sell commitment, you will reap poverty. If you sell courage, you will reap mourning. If you sell passion, you will reap luke warmness. If you sell forgiveness, you will reap bitterness.
Just because life is tough, one should not auction their principles. The large imitation necklace is not worth more than the original gold jewellery you auctioned.
While I was working for Nature’s Secret, which is now the market leading herbal cosmetic brand in Sri Lanka and across many lands in the world, an advertising company offered me a commission to agree to give them a number of hoardings. I clearly knew if I sold my principles, I would have to feed poison to my son Joshua. Happiness should come with the legal rights provided by the system that controls human beings. Yet, if you steal money from your employer, then it is a must that you reap the misery. You do not possess legal rights for the money you received which belongs to your employer. Some decision makers conduct staff promotions based on the personal favours they get from certain employees. They do not do it merely based on performance. In such instances, those promotions are invalid in the unseen realm. It is at the cost of the happiness of the true recipient.
This is the science of life. I have seen many drug dealers and politicians suffer to the utmost in agony, pain and tears because they do not attain the legal rights approved by the worldly order. What they possess is not really theirs. They have stolen the happiness of many innocent parents and people. Just as it is essential to acquire a deed for your land, you need to have the legal rights approved by the worldly order to extract happiness from whatever you have. Just as two different people cannot have the ownership of a single deed, you cannot attain peace at the cost of someone else’s pain. How do you perform in life, in terms of treasuring your principles? Do you auction them frequently or do you treasure them above your own life?
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