For the past few days, I have been constantly seeing financial advertisements, especially those related to mutual funds and other investments. They put a great deal of emphasis on a culture that tells you to work hard for 20 to 30 years, develop skills that allow you to earn more and more money, and invest it so that, after 30 or 40 years, you can build a portfolio worth crores of rupees.

This culture tells you to become a money-making machine and enjoy life in old age. It tells you to devote your present entirely to investments.

I see two major flaws in this culture.

The first flaw is that it assumes that we are certain to live until the age of 60 or 70. But death can come even in youth. It can come tomorrow, or even today. This culture tells us to postpone the joys of the present and save everything for the future. But it fails to understand that, apart from financial needs, human beings also have emotional and psychological needs. These needs are fulfilled by spending time with our families and doing the work we genuinely want to do.

The second flaw is that this culture is turning us into misers. Today, you will find many people lecturing others about how they saved every single penny, never donated to anyone, never went out to eat with their families or friends, never travelled anywhere with them, and rarely bought new clothes. According to them, these sacrifices are the reason they now have a portfolio worth crores of rupees.

The enormous flaw in this way of living becomes clear through the story of a Japanese man whose story went viral. He had also spent his entire life saving and investing money. But when he was asked whether he was happy that he now had a portfolio worth four crore rupees, he said that he was not happy at all. He had never experienced the joys of life and had never spent enough time with his family. Now, this money was of no use to him.

Now, I want to express my own thoughts on this subject.

First, life is temporary and fragile. If you keep saving everything for the joys of old age, you may be left with nothing but regret. Imagine that you die early. Will you regret not having accumulated crores of rupees? Rather, you may regret that you could not live life on your own terms, choose the work your heart truly desired, or spend enough time with your family.

The second point is that the habit of miserliness is making us hollow and heartless from within. Even when we see others suffering, instead of helping them, we keep thinking about saving and accumulating more money.

But the Buddha teaches us to give even when we have little. Because generosity is not something we practise only after becoming wealthy; it is a way of living. Giving expands the heart and brings a kind of joy that no amount of money can buy.

At the end of the day, we will not remember our lives by the size of our portfolios, the number of zeros in our bank accounts, or the wealth we leave behind. We will remember the moments we lived, the people we loved, the kindness we showed, and the memories we created.

So my advice is that don’t spend your youth building a fortune for your old age while forgetting to build a life worth remembering. Because money can secure your future, but it cannot give you back your past. And the greatest tragedy is not dying without becoming a millionaire; it is living an entire life in the pursuit of wealth and realizing, in the end, that you forgot to live.