Who will die when you die..

In November 2015, I met a Partner of my company. A "Partner" is one of the people who own a company that is legally formed as a partnership (as opposed to a corporation or other firm). He is an Indian Bengali young guy, who lives in New York, has a wife and 2 kids in family, and has had a relatively fast paced career growth graph - Senior Consultant to Manager in 2 years, Manager to Senior Manager in 3 years and Senior Manager to Partner in 5 years.

He was visiting India for one of his relations' marriage, and so he also decided to spend 3 days in our Gurgaon office, to work with and better know the members of our team that was working on one of his projects. Though it is not easy to get personal time from such a big person in one's organization, I was fortunate to have got to spend a good amount of time with him while he was in office. People at middle levels of management in an organizational hierarchy do not generally expect people at the highest levels to be so simple, grounded, and approachable, but this person nullifies such notions. He is very grounded, and very warm in meeting, greeting, and working with the relatively junior members of his team.

The incident which triggered this post was the team lunch that we planned with him on one of the days of his visit. We planned the lunch in a nearby hub of high end restaurants. But in Gurgaon, for reaching a high end restaurant in time, one has to take the simplest and cheapest means of transport i.e. is an auto-rickshaw. Considering the additional time it would take in hiring a cab, we proposed to our Partner to hire an auto-rickshaw, to reach the restaurant in time. Surprisingly, he readily accepted the proposal. 

The lunch was quick and involved general chitchatting that helped him and the members of the team get acquainted to each other. The interesting part started on the return journey to the office. We again tried to hire an auto-rickshaw, but it took more time to find one as compared to the onward journey. While trying to catch an auto-rickshaw he experienced the helter-skelter traffic of Gurgaon roads, which was very unusual for him. Vehicles were coming from both the directions on the road without following any lane rules. Crossing the road looked nothing less than an action stunt of a movie. After some time, we managed to find an auto-rickshaw and, again to my fortune, he and I boarded the same auto-rickshaw. On the way back, I asked him what is the difference in being a Senior Manager and being a Partner. He told me that the only major difference is the salary. "As a Partner, you get a serious amount of money from the company". 
Now, a common man like me, would definitely think what do we do with that ridiculously huge amount of money flowing in our bank account every month, when we are already satisfied and stable with the current salary. After all, the additional amount of money will demand our additional commitment to work, which we will not be able to afford without compromising with other qualitative aspects of life. He caught that thought and started explaining. He told me that he was not in a dire need to earn that much amount of money. But when he was offered the new role in the organization, he thought of what changes that additional amount of money could bring to his life. He told that as the main earning hand of the family, he wanted to ensure that his family is able to sustain their current lifestyle in case he meets with a misfortune of untimely death, maybe by being hit by one of the "flying" auto-rickshaw while crossing a busy Gurgaon road en-route a nearby restaurant. He told me about his financial calculations that accounted for a few million dollars for his children's full education, another few million for medical and social emergencies and remaining few for maintaining his affluent lifestyle. By the time he finished, we reached office and then we got busy with work.

However, as is the case with my philosophical self, I kept going back to his thought process of provisioning for his family in case of his sudden death. I started to think that even as a Partner, earning millions of dollars every year, he feels the need to earn more or accumulate more money, may be as an insurance or for the prosperity of his family. I earn a fraction of the money that he earns, but I still don't feel a mad need to earn more. I understand that I can't compare his lifestyle and living expenses to mine, but still I want to understand what is the general philosophy of the middle class people like me which urges us to indulge into this mad quest of earning more and more money. So I made myself the subject of this inquiry.

Do I really want to leave behind an amount of money with which my wife can pay completely for 20 years of education of my kid(s), and with which she does not need to do a job or earn for the rest of her life? Given my current situation, I will not be able to do so even if I wanted to. So, what better I can do for my family? What should I do with the additional, but not-sufficient-for-bearing-lifetime-expenses-of-family, money that I might get as I grow at work?

Sometime back, I read an article which stated, based on a research, that we increase our expenditures proportionally to the increase in our income. We upgrade our lifestyle based on the increased affordability and, in the process, never allow our money to get into the surplus zone. This happens subconsciously and so, unknowingly, we always try to keep ourselves in a financial scarcity zone. I don't want to reject out-rightly the idea of upgrading our lifestyle, but I seriously feel that it is more wise to do it in a thrifty manner. We can definitely avoid some unwarranted upgrades like expensive broadband plans, upgraded Netflix or satellite TV subscriptions, upgraded laptops, mobile phones, and data plans, more servants, more premium brands in food, clothes or house-ware etc. These things have their novel appeal and draw our peers' envy that give us a short-term satisfaction, but after some time they just become as mundane as their predecessors. Then after some time, we again feel the urge to get something new to again get the associated superficial social accreditation, so we want another upgrade, and so we again start the quest to earn more money.

I feel that for every quest of material things, we oversee some non-material qualitative aspects of our life. Over a period of time, the qualitative aspects of life are left far too behind. Even if we realize this, we are scared of putting in all the effort to bring them up-to-speed with the rest of life. To put in that effort requires us to suspend the ongoing quest of material things which we do not, thinking that this might lead to social ire or ridicule. To site an example of such ridicule, a few days back my friend's wife sneered at him for their non-smart TV saying "even Neeraj (who is otherwise a spendthrift) has a Smart TV". This even when they bought an ultra modern TV with a really big screen and latest technical specifications, at a price more than the monthly salary of many of my colleagues. While this ridicule did not affect me, it affects majority of the middle class people like me. Our public persona overpowers our innate self, and we become subject to the mad quest to earn more money to buy more material things, to not be ridiculed by our peers. I feel that we need to have a very strong bond with our innate self, so that we can resist being affected by such frivolous attacks from the external forces. To strengthen this bond, we need to ensure that we are upgrading or empowering our inner selves as we grow in the experience of life. Meditation, reading, writing or any other form of expressing our raw thoughts to the external world, and physical exercise are few tools which I think can help strengthen this bond. A strong bond with the innate self allows us to see things in a better perspective, and enables us to create and maintain a meaningful public persona, which is respected and not envied or attacked by the people around us. So the first thing that I want to ensure, if I die, is that the members of my family are able to achieve and then maintain an equilibrium of growth between the material (public persona) and non-material (qualitative) aspects of their life.

The next thing which I want to ensure is that my family is able to live the life in their own way when I am not around. I don't want them to disown whatever we created or achieved together, but I don't want them to restrict their minds to only the thoughts, dreams or plans which they made with me. In terms of financial stability, my current savings plus insurance can provide them sufficient money to continue living a decent life, rather fortunate compared to majority of the middle class families. I don't want to leave behind a humongous amount of money to pay for all of their future expenses, or for surplus to do anything they want to do in future. I don't want to leave behind a financially rich but stupid and helpless family. I want it to be an intelligent, independent, confident and courageous family which can deal with the difficult situation of losing an important member, and which can still continue to provide for its remaining members and keep itself happy. Even if I don't leave behind any money, which will not be the case though, my family should be able to live up to the challenge, earn money, and not only save it but grow it with its own efforts and planning. And again, in this intensified quest of money for survival, it should be able to carry its innate self along. So, apart from investing in a good insurance policy to cover majority of the financial risks, I want to spend or rather invest an equal amount of money in training my family to be able to handle more responsibilities and the associated pressure. So how to plan this training? I think training in yoga or some sport can be a good tool to imbibe a culture of physical well being. Similarly, meditation or stress management courses can aid in mental well being. Personality development programs, habit of reading books - self-help, fiction, non-fiction or current affairs, can help in social well being. Finally, some vocational or professional training can help in adding to the financial prosperity. So, rather than spending in material upgrades, I want to invest my additional income in upgrading the skills of my currently dependent family members and try make them more independent. 

The last thing is to mitigate the social impact on the family. In India, any sudden personal development is met with a lot of unwarranted involvement by the society, which soon converts into tremendous social pressure. Usually, social setups provide us a sense of security, support, and connection to the society, but at times the obligations and differences of opinions can inflict tremendous stress. So, apart from the financial support and skill training, I want to create a rational social environment for my family. For instance, just imagine how awkward it would be for you to discuss your or your partner's death in your family. I can also imagine the reaction of my immediate family if and when they read this post. They will get extremely worried and react like anything :). However, I feel that if not too often, we should at least once discuss this contingency with our family. After being dead, we can't help our family, or give them any perspective about our death. So why not talk about it at least once, while you are alive. For example, if I die say tomorrow, I don't want my wife to remain a widow for the rest of her life, just because the society may not interpret her decision correctly, and may curse her, and may make her life miserable. I want her to have the freedom and courage to make an intelligent choice on whether or not to marry another person. For me, it will not be about replacing me or forgetting me after my death, it will be about whether or not my wife and my children need another companion to lead a happier and better life. On the other hand, if she feels that she is capable of taking care of herself and kids all by herself, then "widow" will be just a word like other meaningless terms like "baniya","punjabi" (castes in Indian society) etc. Extremely awkward and uncomfortable thoughts in these last few lines, but that's how the expressions are unleashed :). Decision of re-marriage is just one such decision that has social implications, there might be other decisions as well like whether to live with parents or in-laws or in a separate house, whether to work or not work and so-on. I want every member in my family to respect and accommodate every other member's thoughts, and take collective rational decisions in such emotionally difficult times.

I think that if I am able to achieve the above mentioned things for my family, and not just a huge amount of money, then I will be able to say "Only I will die when I die, and my family will survive and still thrive"..