Losing Is Fun!!!

Sure losing can be fun. Why not? You'd love to lose to a kid just to see a smile on their face (trust me there are losers like that) or to an attractive person of the opposite sex, just to score with him/her (Please note I am trying to be gender neutral here. Ya, you got it right, "trying").

But that's not what I am talking about here. I am talking about losing against your wishes, making a stupid stupid fool out of yourself, something that breaks your heart and makes you want to jump off a cliff!! Ya, that's what I am talking about here. No one wants to be in such a situation right. But let me try to change the way you look at it. I'll recount two instances - one in which losing completely ruined my day and one in which it made my day. As it happens both the scenarios are set in out of town vacations.

As a kid, I often used to go out with my parents on touristy vacations. Used to be fun going out with parents in those days, you don't have to be responsible for anything. Your parents are there to cover for you. But on one such occasion, I was given the responsibility to take care of my mum's purse while she paid tribute at some shrine (don't laugh, I was a kid back then and looked cute with a purse). As you've probably guessed by now, I managed to somehow lose it. I don't really remember how, maybe some tout managed to get it off my hands while I was appreciating the future potential of a kid of the opposite sex (notice the gender neutrality again).

Of course my parents were angry with me when they realized it, but tried not to show it. In any case I felt really stupid and dejected and angry at my carelessness. Losing my mom's purse had completely ruined that vacation for me.

Now take another scenario. Recently me and my buddies took a trip to the ultimate Indian bachelor party destination, Goa. We were all meeting after many years and it promised to be a gala time. We reached our hotel, pooled our money in one wallet, handed it over to the most "responsible" person in the group and headed for the beach. And as fate would have it, the "responsible" person was duped by a tout and we lost all our money. For reasons beyond my control, I cannot describe how exactly the tout duped my friend, but it was rather ingenious. And do we mourn our loss? Not at all. We couldn't believe what just happened and how foolish we were not to see through the whole con. We couldn't help laughing at our stupidity. We laughed till tears started running down our cheeks. We laughed for days thinking about it. Losing the money and in such style really made our day. We hadn't hoped of laughing so much on that vacation. We enjoyed it so much so that the person who had lost the wallet also started participating in our merry making. So in a way it was money well spent.

So in a nutshell Losing can be fun too, it's just how you look at it or in the above case how your friends make you enjoy it by laughing mercilessly at you.

It's All About Honey, Money

For those of you who are thinking that I made a grammatical mistake in the title by writing "honey" before "money", you may not be completely wrong. Actually I am confused (come to think of it ain't I always confused??). Do we earn money for keeping self and spouse happy or do we choose our spouse in such a way that is beneficial for our personal balance sheet? This question anyways is not so relevant for the ultra rich, happy with their economic standing people but for the young middle class to not so rich people who want to better their and their progeny's economic prospect.

According to my experience, the answer to the question keeps changing with age and phase of life, may of course differ from person to person as well. In the early stages when you are about to enter the professional world, you have ambition, you have fire in your belly, you are already targetting for the CEO's job, that is the time when you care more about money and not about "flimsy" relationships.

But then, for better or for worse, you fall in love. All your goals, all your ideals go for a toss. Your world turns topsy turvy. All day, all night you think of only the object of your affection. Needless to say, you start showering expensive gifts on your sweetheart. The house you have been planning to buy can wait, but right now you need to make your special one feel special. That's when you put faithful old money in the backseat.

But alas!! As it happens with most surreal relationships these days, you start having fights and the angel suddenly becomes the demon who's looking to burn you in the fire of hell for all eternity. Then you run, you run for your life and a month later seen around the city bars having a gala time and saying "Never...... Never again". Now you and your money are living happily together.

All this while you forget that your biological clock is ticking (yes even men have them, or so do the parents of nubile age boys think). Despite all your attempts, all conversations with your parents end up on the topic of marriage. You finally give in to the pressure and start coping with your parents in the search for a suitable match. But hold on a sec, you are not in love, of course in love with your money, but not with a person. So your criteria for your prospective spouse is someone who has a decent earning potential and wdn't come in between you and the house that you are still planning to buy. Hence at this stage in life it's still all about money, honey.

Now, let's say you got the spouse you desired and you, honey and money have been living happily for a couple of years. You bought the house you had been looking to buy for all these years. But the CEO job still seems to be far away. Your personal life is fine but professionally if you are still ambitious, and your ambition is not being rewarded amply, you become dejected. Happens to most of us. So at this stage you make a compromise and settle with whatever stage you are in your professional life. You learn to start being happy with whatever money you are earning. Everyday you just want to finish off your work by 6 and head home ASAP. So now you have come to the stage of "It's all about Honey, Money". This stage I assume lasts throughout your remaining life unless there's a lot of friction in your personal life.

I haven't really lived through all these stages myself, so most of the stuff is just surmise, but an intelligent and logical one I hope.