"Live Simply so Others May Simply Live," Mahatma Gandhi

This phrase might sounds so uncomplicated and simple. Yet in reality, if taken seriously, the most demanding and challenging vocation a person could ever have. Why this is so? Because, the fact is, human being by nature is insatiable. There is that innate unquenchable desire to possess more. In other words, there is that human tendency to long for more, to acquire as much as he can for the belief that this more he possess could render him happiness.

            In as much as human being pursuits happiness, may it be by possessing power, prestige and wealth, he cannot but follow his drive to acquire more even at the expense of others. The Priority Development Assistance Fund scam, also called the PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam, that havoc the image of the Philippine government nowadays elucidates this much. Our legislators, senators and other government officials related with this scam are not wanting in their salary and income. The government has provided them enough. But why they betrayed their people. Why in all of so many ways to earn extra income, they have resorted to graft and corruption. What guts compelled them to bulk their wealth while the majority of their people starve.

            At times, I hate these officials though they are not yet proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. But most often I pitied them because they succumbed with the temptation. The evil conquered them. They were misled like most of us.

            Karl Rahner in his theologizing said, we are designed to long for God. Therefore, that emptiness in us, that space in our being which renders us insatiable is part of the infinite design setting that space which God alone can fill in and quench our desire. It is not these earthly things that could give us true happiness. It is God who is our Summum Bonum, our happiness, our final end, the eternal happiness of man. Hence, Jesus told us everything in the Father in John 15:11, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." He leads us the right way to gain happiness in Matthew by not setting our hearts on earthly wealth but rather on heavenly treasures. Matthew 6:19-20, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal".

                Hence, let us not be greedy with these earthly resources we can afford because it cannot save our soul. Matthew 16:26 has it, "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" Instead, share your blessings among the people who are less fortunate and cannot afford them. Give others (your neighbors) what they deserve, love. Why love? Simply because you can give without love but you cannot love without giving.

            Living simply so that others may simply live is the simplification of the second greatest commandment of Jesus "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31).