greed

after telling me to send in the car for repair on monday, the service center staff next asked me if i wanted to claim transport or to get a replacement car (as covered in my insurance claim against the other party).

immediately i told him to get me a replacement car. i need the transport as i have too many things in the coming week that needs a vehicle. but after hanging up, i started wondering if i should take the transport claims instead... by doing so, i could possibly end up with some extra cash, i thought. i started to do some mental calculations as to how much i could "earn" from taking the transport claim and the implications of it. and i started to assess how much i would use in my daily transport needs, my daily schedule for next week etc. thoughts like - my mum is in hospital and i will have to visit her, what if i take public transport, how much time is needed, how will my mum take to it if i were to be late, how do i manage her? how to explain to her? i have been invited to share at the university next week and it is located at the other end of the island, how would manage my time, etc etc etc... and against all these different scenarios, i started to calculate the potential cost involved. as i thought about it, i started to get more and more stressed up.

and after a while, i stopped. i stepped out of myself and look at what i was doing and realized this - greed has created all these stress. and i decided to stop. and with that, my stress left me. it's not that i do not value money or that i am rich, but to get driven by greed and stressed out by such issues is not necessary and can be avoided. it would be more productive and easier to focus my energies on more positive things.

:-)