[UPDATED] See-Saw To See-Show

From "See-saw" to "See-show"

A craze of bragging and begging attention

In the childhood we used to play the game seesaw. But now we are grown up and this See-saw no more excites us. So we have built a new game that's called see show. The game of seesaw has given us a lot of joy and we have had good memories of it. But the game of See-show is different and this one is proving to be a contagious stress developer. In the seesaw people use their weight to play safely and in see-show they use their ego to play safely. You might be thinking what exactly see-show is. 

See-show is a game in which a person is literally says to it's acquaintance and society SEE- SHOW simultaneously. Let me make it more clear.

• SEE i got a good job.
• SHOW which job you've got?
• SEE i have lots of friends
• SHOW how many friends you have?
• SEE i am making so much money
• SHOW how much money you make?
• SEE I'm so beautiful
• SHOW how beautiful you are?
• SEE I'm having a great life.
• SHOW how great is your life?
• SEE my partner loves me so much
• SHOW how much yours loves you?
• SEE I'm so famous
• SHOW how famous you are?
• SEE I have got so many likes on my dp?
• SHOW how much you've got?
• SEE i had delicious cuisines for dinner.
• SHOW what you had for dinner? 

And so on.....

That's the game of 'ego' feeding. Feed the ego feel the good, but the problem with 'ego' is that it demands so much and no matter how much you feed it, it remains to be hungry and it never satiates. As long as you feed it, it makes you feel good, as soon as you fail to feed, it start giving you unbearable mental pain(stress, depression, anxiety,etc.) It will make you feel worthless, dispatched, degraded, alienated, dumb, idiot and other similar kinds of adjectives.

This game makes people ungrateful because all they can see is what they lack. They have a constant urge to show something to others so that they can feel worthy. This trend became so much prevalent in our society. From wedding ceremony to buying Bakra for qurabani. Just for example Mohtarams during bakra eid be like "I'll make sure that everyone would notice my Bakra. And another Mohtaram be like "ohh he bought bakra of ₹50,000 now I'll buy even costlier" And Mohtaramas to their husbands after wedding ceremonies be like "oh did you notice her? She was wearing a dress worth of ₹10,000 now buy me the same" (The examples are everywhere you could give me more in comments or chat)

Okay, okay, one can do whatever he /she wants to do with his/her money I know. But the thing that I'm talking about is their wish to appear more beautiful, wealthy or worthy than others. 

That's why people seem to be so busy in achieving things which they don't even need. They constantly struggle to achieve more and more so that they could feel worthy. 

Well there's nothing wrong in being ambitious and having much but there is a problem if we do that for the sake of others. For then we feel a constant pressure to achieve more and more and in this unending loop we loose our true self. We don't get time to appreciate the beauty of life neither get time to reflect and contemplate over the life itself. 

A person feels happy when he thinks that he's better than others in terms of his intellectual ability, financial conditions, body appearance or materialistic possessions. While he feels sad when he thinks that he is worse than others. The point which he omits in this unending competition is that none of the competitions has ever mattered. 

We should realise that we've come in this world alone and would leave it alone then we'll be questioned alone. What others think or say about us not really matters. So even if the whole world start calling us the most beautiful, modern, intellectual, rational, wealthy person it won't do us any good in our eternal judgement. Or even if the whole world would start calling us ugly, backward, stupid, poor person it won't do us any harm in our eternal judgement. 

What truly matters at the deepest level is how sincerely we searched for the path of truth, how hard we tried to improve ourselves every single day, how efficiently we used every gift of Allah, how honestly we tried to make each other's life easy, how eager we were towards learning knowledge and how serious we were towards our judgement and eternal destinations.

Here it should be noted that we should work towards being ambitious, wealthy, intellectual, rational, logical, beautiful, etc etc but not at the cost of forsaking our self and not at the cost of being heedless about our ending. 

Someone rightly said  that "today it's become more important to appear happy than actually be happy"

As we learn to be actually happy rather than appearing happy and shift our intent from seeking people's praises to our own integrity, things will start getting better and we will approach towards higher self satisfaction and high self esteem, and our happiness will no more dependent on external experiences. 

So quit this game of See-Show. 

"If you're ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your own integrity. If you need a witness be your own" - Epictetus 

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking-" Marcus Aurelius