Listener: Sir, why do we lose the value of anything once we get it?
Acharya Prashant: What’s your name?
L: Kritika.
AP: The question is “Why do we lose the value of anything once we get it?”
Obviously the question is contradictory, it is stating a paradox. If I want something and I get it then I cannot be dissatisfied, right? I want a pen, I get a pen, I must be happy. I want water, I get a glass of water, I must be happy. But she’s saying that experience is not this way. Experience suggests that we chase things but once we get them they are not what they appeared to be when they were being chased.
Has that been your experience as well, that while chasing it, it appears very lucrative, fascinating, but once it is obtained it reduces in its appeal. Has that been your experience? That’s a very common experience. What I am saying, there is a paradox here. I want a pen, I get a pen, I must be satisfied. If I say that I want a pen and I’m given a pen and I’m still dissatisfied, what does that mean?
What I have been given is a fact, this pen or the glass of water that have been given, that is a tangible thing, a fact in my hands. There is nothing wrong with the thing, so there is no reason to be dissatisfied with the thing. There can be only one way, only one reason why I am still dissatisfied – it is not what I wanted. I was chasing ‘a’ I got ‘a’, still dissatisfied. The only reason could be, I think I was chasing ‘a’, I was not really chasing ‘a’. I want something else.
