The Four Things

Interacting with children often makes you think about your fundamentals. During a recent project of mine, a nature-camp with children, I got to crystallize one such thought. We started the discussion on most important things in life and around ? This is how it went.

Obviously, money is important, they said. You can do so many things with money. Don't we learn so that we can earn more money ? true. Someone said that resources are important. Water, food, houses - then we discussed how some resources are easy to make like cars and houses. But some resources like trees and pure water take many years to make, so they are more precious. One boy suggested working is important - that is hard work (grown-ups would have said labour). Indeed a lot of things are not possible without hard work.

This discussion went on for a while and I started seeing a pattern in what the kids were talking. It seems there are just four basic things that are important in life. They are - money, hard work, skills and ideas.

Of course, love, peace, family are also important but these are rather abstract concepts. Ideas, hard work, skills are as real as money and they can be traded with each other. A lot of money without ideas, skills and hard work isn't a worth while life.

Can we exchange an idea for a meal ? Can I feed you for a price of a skill ? How about hard work in return of a good idea ? Can we build a business or a community on trading these four things. At the least it would be great fun.  Its a pity that money alone has tilted the scale off-balance. Our children should be exposed to idea that skills, hard work, ideas and money, are important and can be exchanged.

Thanks to the discussion with kids, we found the four basic things we must trade to live a better life - Ideas, Skills, Hard Work and Money.