Everything in life cannot be outsourced. While we live in a world today, where people think everything can be outsourced, it may not be necessarily true. A mother cannot outsource loving her child. While it may be scientifically possible to have surrogate mothers to deliver your child but the love between a mother and child cannot be delegated.

Today’s generation is truly a world workforce and they are willing to cross oceans to pursue their careers or interests. This is indeed a great development and good for the world order. In the past, people were scared of moving beyond their home town and then their state or country. But, now the world is the market place for people to thrive in whatever they are passionate about.

While this is a positive development, there is an increasing mindset to believe that anything and everything in this world can be bought for money. This may not be true and indeed there are many soft aspects of life which cannot be outsourced or bought with money.

One cannot buy health or happiness anywhere in the world. You may be the richest person in the world but if you fall sick, the best of doctors can do their best but ultimately there is a divine force who determines your destiny.

Similarly, you could buy everything in the world with money but you cannot buy love or care. A mother cannot outsource loving her children. Nor children can outsource taking care of their parents.

With increasing materialisation of the world, people have started believing that everything can be outsourced or bought with money. This is not true. When you are sick and lying on a hospital bed in any part of the world, you think of your family and friends and pray they were with you at that time of distress.

Parents today are generally financially independent. They can take care of their physical needs with their savings. There are care givers to take of their health. However, they cannot buy happiness or insource their joy with their grandkids.

Similarly, children may think that they are financially supporting their parents and taking care of them. Buying a house, car or insurance is not loving your parents. Imagine the hours parents spent with you as kids answering your stupid questions with all patience you need. Today, they are looking to sit and talk to you. They are not happy with video calls or yearly visits to enquire about their wellness.

The Indian culture has taught us that we need to treat “Mother as God, “Father as God”, “Teacher as God” and “Guest as God”. But , we seem to imagine that “Money is God” and it can take care of everything in life. While money can buy material things in life, it cannot cure us of all physical and mental illnesses. It cannot provide us happiness. It cannot give us love when we are desperately in need of it.

We need to realise that everything in life cannot be outsourced or bought. We cannot buy our parents nor outsource loving and caring for them. We can buy the best house, the latest car or even take them to the most exotic destinations with money but that may not necessarily make them happy as they are not looking for those in old age.

The elders look for love and care. They want someone to sit and listen to them. They want their children to be with them and visit them often. They want to play with their grand children. If this realisation does not dawn on us today, it may some day but then it may be too late. After all, everyone has an expiry date and after that, it may be of no use to regret since we can never rewind life.

Let us learn this basic tenet of life. Loving and caring is human and can never be outsourced. Neither Artificial intelligence nor any technology of the world in the future can take over these responsibilities from human kind. We also need to realise that life is a full circle and there will be a tomorrow when our own children will do the same to us.

Let us learn to love and care for those who have made us what we are today before it is too late.

S Ramesh Shankar

18th May 2023