"Contention"

Resist the pull of The 99 Club

IN an affluent nation such as Singapore, many of us cannot help but get sucked into trying to keep up with the Joneses, with much of our waking time spent striving for material fulfilment. This mentality reminds me of a story sent to me recently by a colleague.

Once upon a time, there lived a king who, despite his opulent lifestyle, was unhappy and discontented. He could not understand why a particular servant in his court always smiled and sang as he worked. He was jealous that the lowly servant had so much joy in him, while he, the supreme ruler of the land, was unhappy and gloomy. The king asked the servant: “Why are you so happy?” The servant replied: “Your Majesty, I am but a servant and my family and I don’t need too much – just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our stomachs.”

Dissatisfied with the answer, the king turned to his adviser. After pondering for a moment, the adviser said: “Your Majesty, I believe the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club. “To truly know what The 99 Club is, Your Majesty, you need to place 99 gold coins in a bag and leave it at the servant’s doorstep.” Later, when the servant found the bag of coins, he let out a great shout of joy and started to count the coins. He was not convinced that someone would leave only 99 coins at his doorstep and immediately started to wonder where the 100th coin was.Unable to find it after several re-counts, the servant decided that he was going to work harder than ever to earn the extra gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day on, his life changed. The overworked man was horribly grumpy, and he criticised his family severely for not helping him earn the 100th gold coin. He even stopped singing while he worked. Noticing the transformation, the adviser said to the king: “Your Majesty, the servant had now officially joined The 99 Club.”

He added: “The 99 Club is a name given to a group of people who have enough to be happy but are never content, because they are always striving for an extra something, telling themselves that, ‘if I get that, then I will be happy for life’.” There is an obvious moral to this story. No matter where we are, we can be happy, even with very little in our lives – but the minute we are given something bigger and better, we tend to want even more. Chances are that we will lose the joy we used to have when we had less, and may even hurt the people around us by our actions, without realising it.

So, the next time you stumble upon a situation similar to that of being presented with 99 gold coins, count that as a blessing. Do not let what has come your way push you over the edge, and resist the unwelcome membership to The 99 Club.

Extracted form My paper, 17 July 2010. By Geoff Tan