The Joy of Seeking

Inspired from a Quora post on the same topic. 

Just imagine you woke up one fine morning, some stranger comes to your house, celebrates their birthday, cuts a birthday cake, you and the other family members are instructed to encircle them and clap mechanically while singing the birthday jingle. The happy-go-lucky person smiles and enjoys, is being pampered and dressed up like a prince or princess. You blankly stare at them. You are bestowed with chocolates and food of their choice. Unwillingly you consume that. You are entitled to shower good wishes in return. What do you feel from inside? You get suffocated with the realization during every such celebration that you could have been in their place, but you are not. Your birthday could also be celebrated like theirs, but no, you are different, under privileged. You are supposed to be an onlooker, a part of their celebration. They bid you bye and add another scar to your little innocent heart, and you curse your being.

This is a trend these days that to inculcate the joy of giving in the new generation, parents take them to the orphanage to celebrate their birthdays. Definitely it is a good way to induce morals and philanthropy in them. Already, the kids these days are brought up in a nuclear family structure and that too most likely as a single child. This means they are segregated from the joy of  caring and sharing. They are so much pampered that they get everything they ask for. This way they do not understand what being deprived of something means.

Apparently, taking them to orphanage for birthday celebration incorporates a sense satisfaction by sharing their happiness with the less privileged ones.

Unfortunately, it has become a fashion wherein we overlook the other side of the coin. 

How great it is to feel glad assuming that you are spreading happiness, to choke someone's conscience on the pretence of charity! Should we celebrate our birthday with them or their birthdays with us?

Happiness is a relative concept. What satisfies you might suffocate someone. 

"No one becomes poor by giving." - Anne Frank

I have seen people doing acts of charity and then posting pictures of the deed on social media. In doing so their prime focus is to accumulate publicity and enduring unfair "profit by giving". Do noble cause such that even your left hand mustn't know that right hand has done it.

If we merely think about using our earnings for our family, we are no different than an animal. Even an animal protects and provides for its family. I assume that if you have got resources enough to read this post, you surely have enough to help the underprivileged. If not money, share knowledge, contribute towards their education or like. Knowledge multiplies on sharing, unlike wealth! And as they say, "Give a man a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime"

Remember, the hand that gives is the one that receives. It's a saying in Hindi "देने वाले का हाथ हमेशा ऊपर होता है, और लेने वाले का नीचे " ( The giver's hand is always above the receiver's hand).