It was a 2013 evening, my sister and I went for a walk after dinner. It was a daily practice for us those days. Chinu was playing with the stray dogs – well behaved and good dogs of our area. This habit also included feeding left over chapatis to these stray dogs. We had started eating multi-grain chapatis, my sister used to prepare the composition (of course sourced from internet) of different grains – usually five. One day my sister told me – “I have noticed that these stray dogs do not eat these chapatis, earlier when we were making wheat chapatis it did not happen.” I jokingly said – “They have not developed a taste for it!” Her observation was correct, these dogs did not touch these chapatis, matter became bit serious and a learning – eat chapatis of one grain at a time. Perhaps the animals are closer to the nature than us, they know what will suit their body more than we know about our body. That is our problem – we have moved away from listening to our natural instinct. I wonder if animals have glutton intolerance or lactose intolerance etc. We humans have such eating disorders. I believe the reason is our not listening to our body. I believe our body can give us signs that – you should not eat it. But we do not listen.

I could remember incident of 2013 when I had been watering plants at home. I noticed that the pots were discarding water that the plant did not need. Plants also take as much as required, we do not, our greed is for more money than what we need to survive, we’ve huge wardrobes and eat more for taste than for nourishment. Have you seen a fat leopard? But obesity is a problem with us. We go to gym to be fit, yet our eating habits belie our natural instinct.

Have you heard a saying birds of a feather flock together. Needless to say, many must have seen birds of same species flying together from season to season. Literal meaning of this saying actually changes in our (human being’s) context. Because we humans have divided our existence by color of skin, our way of thinking and our religious following etc. We have been fighting for Left Vs Right or religious supremacy – be it ISIS in Syria (for Islam) or Rohingya (against Islam). That is an opportunity cost of being Humans.

We have – somewhere – missed our intelligence in our growth (smarter phones but dumb people), our belief of being morally correct (building stock pile of nuclear weapons for self protection – war for peace) and proving one being religiously pious than the other (my religion is better and correct than your religion is). That is opportunity cost of being human!

The question to ask is – are we really “being” human? Animals are better in some sense, they don’t kill to either propagate their religion, control other animals and show supremacy.

In Indian theology it is said that a person is born as human after a million+ lives as other creature. Well, few people would not accept this concept because of their way of thinking or conditioning of mind. Why there is harmony in nature but not in our cities, countries? Isn’t it the “cost” we are paying for the opportunities we have got as human beings?

This was topic for Sept 7th 2017 LBC, I wrote after a month. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs.  Maria, Ramana uncleji, Ashok and Shackman.

PS – English meaning of Opportunity cost – the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

More on opportunity cost as concept of economics at investopedia

Image source – http://www.jamieatlas.com/2008/07/24/stepmill-most-underrated-machine-in-your-gym/


KRD Pravin

Here I am supposed to write about myself. Professionally, I am quite serious and a workaholic; personally I am an individual who enjoys what he does and takes life as it comes. I am passionate about my work and actions and empathetically careful, attached and committed to them. All this makes me a fierce competitive professional and yet a compassionate soul, the Yin and the Yang together. Balancing is the art to be practiced using the middle path. From - http://business2buddha.com/about/

1 Comment

rummuser · October 2, 2017 at 5:42 pm

Yes, we have lost opportunities of a natural way of life by being human in today’s world.

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