The Color of Want

Wherever you are, whatever your station in life, you'll always have a few handfuls of sorrow stored away.

One day your sorrow will be this: why don't you have a home? That sorrow will tear at you, devour you piece by piece, day after day. Then one day you'll have a house of your own. After that, the absence of a black car will chase you around day and night. The fulfillment of one lack gives birth to at least two new ones.

One day you won't be able to sleep for the regret of not being able to speak a few words with the person you love. Then by some stroke of fortune, you'll have that person. Once you do, you'll realize it wasn't the person you wanted at all—it was happiness. One attainment launches ten new longings into a person's life.

And so the boy studying at National College suffers from not getting into Dhaka University, while the Dhaka University student falls into depression from the illness of not making it to BUET. The big businessman torments himself for not becoming a high government official, while the high government official agonizes over not becoming a prominent MP or minister, or a major businessman.

In this way, the richest person in the country drowns in sorrow for not being the richest person in the world.

The truth is, there's no such thing as fulfilling needs in human life. After one need is met, ten new ones are born.

That's just how we humans are. The more someone has, the more they lack. Some lack wealth, some happiness, some peace.

Everyone in this world lives with some ailment or other.

The homeless man lying by the roadside lacks only a house—but once that need is fulfilled, he'll need a courtyard for his house, just as the world's wealthiest person, after one business succeeds, develops the need for ten more businesses.

Better to let some specific, familiar lacks remain in life. Let some old sorrows circle back and cling to the edges of existence. Never try to have everything in life—having it all would ruin everything!