The best of countries and corporations are so because they have the best of budgets. It is natural, therefore, that there is so much concern about our national Budget.
If only we spent as much time worrying about our domestic budget... but we remain glued to our television sets for hours, listening carefully to the Budget speech. We spend even more time criticizing it afterwards.
How many of us can say honestly that we have worked out a 'life' budget for ourselves? A life budget includes committing time to self, family, society and God. The lives of those who do this become richer not just financially, but socially and spiritually too.
Just as a country's budget must be well balanced for its economy to be healthy, life's budget, too, has to be well balanced for life to be lived fruitfully.
Many corporate executives invest all their time and effort in pursuing careers and climbing the professional ladder. When they reach the top however, most realise it wasn't really worthwhile. They discover that their victory is hollow and winning it cost their health, family and psyche.
They suffered obesity, heart disease and fatigue on the physiological front; separated spouse, estranged children and uncared for parents on the familial front; frustration, depression and stress on the physio-psychological front.
In the US, Canada, China and Japan, this phenomenon has resulted in a tragic burgeoning of suicides and cardiovascular and cancer-related deaths.
A leading bank in Canada devoted one of its monthly letters to this problem with the title, 'Let's Slow Down'. "We are victims of mounting tension", it enunciated. "We have difficulty relaxing: We are not living fully".
By Sadhu Vishwamurtidas