Living away from home is an experience which teaches you far more than being independent and careful. When I first joined boarding, I felt stranded, lost in an unknown land of a different country. It was first time away from my parents. My parents and I shared a special kind-of-bond, a one that can’t be defined by words, a one beyond the ones of nurturing and extending to the boundaries of friendship. Even though I was surrounded by so many, I felt alone. I had a longing to run away from the boarding back into the place of my comfort, where I was not only familiar with every inch of the place but could be my very own self. These inner feelings were sometimes expressed in the form of short outbursts. That was the time I realised how much I valued relationships. I soon started to realise that maybe if I give it a second chance, I might actually be happy even away from my home. The thought frightened me at first, but later I tried to open up. Living with friends wasn’t a bad idea after all. I slowly started enjoying myself and forgetting about the fact that I was away from my parents. It seemed to me that everyday there was something new to look forward to. I was infact happy to live there. The regular visit from my parents made up for me missing them, and I started to value every member of my family even more.

This experience taught me that sometimes non-tangible things are worth a worth a million times more than any Iphone or Ipad. It taught to understand how we often tend to take for granted how we deal with the things around us, and not really measure their true boundless value.

Have you ever sat down and really thought about how much you value your possessions? Do you value your belongings more than you value friends, family, love, or yourself? The truth is that obsession with possessions has become a way of life in today's society.

Materialism is when you value your possessions more than anything else. Basically, your possessions are the things which make you happy. That’s what we all do today. We live in a world in which people are running the rat race. The unending rat race for money or possessions leads to enmity, hatred and destruction of so many relationships.

This is the concept which many novels revolve around. How many of you have read “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens? For those of you who haven’t, it is about this man called Ebenezer Scoorge who is visited by ghosts from the Christmas past, present and future. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol to illustrate the problems with materialism. As a youth, Scrooge was treated very poorly by his family, which led him to look at money as a form of security, something that he could trust. His love for money leads him to lose the woman he loves, and after that he leads a lonely, bitter existence. The Spirits show him, though, just how many people are able to be happy at Christmas without the benefit of material wealth, and this helps to lead him to see just how flawed his thinking has been, and just how miserable he has become by focusing only upon the material and never cultivating any relationship. Once his focus shifted from the material to the spiritual world, Scrooge was able to become a happy man.

We all in one way or the other represent Ebenezer. Today, life is being lived too fast. No one slows down to enjoy life. We should all get off this rapid train once in a while and experience things at their own pace. Instead of focusing primarily on how successful you can be, how much money you can get or how big your house can be, we must start building something that will remain with us forever, memories.

Why don’t you just take a second and try reconnecting with the reality and build more connections…. Because they are worth every penny you can’t earn in that time.

I would like to conclude with a famous quote said by Rudyard Kipling, “Someday, you will meet a man who cares for none of these things of yours. Then you will know how poor you are.”