Why we fall

My father gave me an article to read on "Why we keep falling for financial scams".

The article talks about how, over centuries, people have been consistently falling for scams - from expensive tulip bulb stock trading to the Nigerian mails that even you must have gotten, telling you that they would offer a part of their inherited fortune, to you, for a fee!

The question that remains un-answered is - why DO people fall for such scams?

Famous American playwright Arthur Miller, often based his plays around the notion of the "American Dream". The concept embodied a perfect life, with wealth, fame and good fortune. But what I wondered while reading the play "The Death of a Salesman" was, why just Americans? Don't we all have similar dreams - those of being famous, and rich, and of having all the luck in the world?

And it is probably these very dreams, these desires, that push each of us towards these scams. Scams play on the deepest emotions of humans. They promise people the hope of getting something truly good in life, of reaching a little closer to where we want to be.

What the scam artists also play upon is the intense human emotion called greed. Being who we are, we are never satisfied with what we have, we always desire more. Never satisfied with what we already have, we crave for what we don't have, or worse still, what someone else has!

The day we learn how to go forward in life, without jealousy, without greed, and without meaning any harm to another person, we might actually become worthy of being called HUMANS.

I decided to rename my blog - it's gone from This & That to Finding Neverland. Not that I'm a huge Peter Pan fan, I do agree with the philosophy. It would be wonderful if we could all stay kids!

But on deeper introspection, finding Neverland is about finding the child in each one of us, and keeping that child alive..... that innocence and imagination; the ability to see something good in everything and make fantastic out of the ordinary.............

Another year has gone...and it was pretty eventful! Hoping that the new year is eventful only in the good sense of the term, here's wishing everyone a happy and safe new year!
I'm not the type who makes a lot of new year resolutions, but this year I made one - to be more regular with my blog. And since, most new year resolutions don't last beyond the month of January, let's see how far this one goes!