Anxious about the immaterial

Have you ever felt like there isn't a point to anything you're doing? Does it strike you that when you die, all that you've ever attained in life has no bearing on your afterlife? Does it seem like all that you have in this world means little spiritually?

Of course you have, but you still act the same nonetheless.

Why?

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People I know are consumed by the material - that car, the latest handphone, the wealth creation strategy. Much of our status in this society are tied to that: the cash value of what you've attained. Perhaps it is the simplest way to rank yourself - in a civilized world, our only measures of each other's worth are through that simple denominator known as money.

I don't know if that is a sad state to be in. It does drive one to succeed though, and I know that one of my main motivators where my job is concerned is the money I get. Getting that house and car just seemed so much more important when you know someone else is getting it too. And they're telling you about it.

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It's worse when it bites you - you're letting it get to you that you don't have that car, house, phone, and what-not the other person has. The little voice says "its a fabrication, you're being sucked into that dimension known as envy again". But why do you feel like it is natural, even acceptable, that you desire those things too? What's with those pangs of desire when a friend waxes lyrical about his latest acquisition?

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Desire is such a coy toy - it teases you and entices you. It mocks you for your lack of courage. It sucks your energy in mindless pursuits. You want it, and you think that it wants you too; but what it really wants to you is to reward you if you're worthy, and destroy you when you're not. And when you finally realised that Desire has played the inattainable game with you, her twin Despair engulfs you in waves of anguished pain.

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So has it struck you that when you die, none of it really matters? Of course it has, but you're too young to care - you think you'll live forever.

A sick game, and we're none the wiser.