DID I EMBRACE OR BLOCK THE PROSPERITY?





Pic.: Pradeep Nanda

A lady – who must be in her mid-thirties – was trying to meet me and discuss something, as she put it most convincingly: ‘SO, SO important to you sir’. She was referred to me by a person I knew very well. But, even before meeting this lady, I could sense, that the lady was trying to ‘sell’ to me something… and, she was doing it the way a hardcore sales guy did… Yes, she was trying to tell me how ‘important’ her product, her idea, to me was… how incomplete and unhappy my life would be, if I did not go for it…

I told the lady over the phone itself, “Ma’am, you are coming from so far… I do not wish to disappoint you… Why can’t you let me know what is that ‘so important’ to me?”

“No sir, that’s something we cannot discuss over the phone,” the lady said with all the charm in her possession, “We will discuss it over when we meet.”

And, I knew, that I would not allow this lady to make me feel how incomplete or unhappy my life was without the stuff she was coming with… I knew, how to say ‘no’ if I did not want it…

The lady came, last afternoon. After the initial warm-up, she began to tell me what was that ‘so, so important’ she had come to offer me… to make me feel happy and complete…

Now, this lady must be the umpteenth person to come and convince me to ‘partner with’… Each of them come with a different ‘business proposal’ and they talk about ‘revenue sharing’… Many of them present it so luringly, that you simply end up saying ‘yes’ to the ‘marriage’!

This lady’s proposal was a typical one for a person like me (who was in teaching ‘business’)… She tried to paint the lucrative picture before my mind… If I referred students for their courses, how much I would earn behind each student… How rich I could be – just sitting in my chair, doing nothing!

I told the lady, without any fuss, that I was not interested… that, I had never done it before and would never do it, now or ever.

“Why? What is wrong sir,” the lady pushed, “everybody does it… so and so have done it… this one and that one does it (She named some of them)… It is just practical and ethical, sir.”

“Good for them, ma’am,” I conveyed my stand assertively; “I am fine with the choices I am making in my life.”

“Sir, you are ‘blocking’ the money that is coming to your door,” this lady put it with, what sounded like, a spiritual law of prosperity… “You are resisting wealth… That’s not good for your future.”

I smiled, got up from my seat, picked three of my books, bent down and scribbled: “With best wishes and love”… and, as I handed over the three books to her, I wished deeply from my heart well for the lady… and, said to her, “Ma’am, here are three little books… They will tell you whether or  not my decision will be good or bad for my future.”

The lady did not even take a passing glance on the ‘gift’ I had just made to her… She just tucked them in her bag, as if it all meant nothing to her… She got up and said, “Okay, then.”

And, she left…

I stood on the door wondering, if I had ‘blocked’ wealth and prosperity from coming to my door… If my future would be bright or dark…

I smiled, as my head nodded!


GERALD D’CUNHA

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