EVERY TIME YOU UPGRADE YOUR LIFESTYLE, YOU BECOME LESS USEFUL TO YOUR PEOPLE
- Madhukar Dama
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
INTRODUCTION
In villages and small towns, people are helpful to each other. They build homes together, cook during weddings, care for the sick, and share tools and grains.
But as people move to cities, earn more, and upgrade their lifestyle — they slowly become useless to their own people. Why? Let’s understand this clearly.
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1. YOU STOP DOING THINGS YOURSELF
When you upgrade your lifestyle:
You stop cooking. You order.
You stop fixing. You call the technician.
You stop cleaning. You hire help.
This means:
Your skills fade
Your body weakens
Your hands don’t know how to help anymore
In the old days, you could build a fence, carry water, massage your mother’s legs.
Now, you send a gift voucher.
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2. YOU LOSE TOUCH WITH REALITY
Upgraded lifestyle comes with:
AC, elevators, filtered water, fast food, ready clothes
But back home, people still face:
Load shedding, borewell issues, dust, flies, sweat
So you say:
"It’s too hot, too dirty, too slow"
You forget — this is the same reality you were born into, the same one your people still live in. You lose the ability to feel their world.
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3. YOU BECOME TOO ‘BUSY’
Your upgraded life is full of:
EMIs, meetings, gym sessions, traffic, notifications
You don’t even have time to sit for an hour with your aging grandmother or help your uncle fix a leaking roof.
And when you visit your people, you’re always "in a hurry."
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4. YOU START PREACHING, NOT PARTICIPATING
You say:
"Why don’t you invest?"
"Why don’t you start a startup?"
"Why don’t you move to Bangalore?"
But you don’t sit with them on the farm
You don’t understand their debts
You don’t know their fears
You became an expert in advice, but a zero in action.
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5. YOU OFFER MONEY INSTEAD OF TIME
You say:
“Take this money and get it done”
But what they needed was:
You.
Money cannot replace your love, patience, hands, or silence.
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6. YOU BECOME PHYSICALLY FRAGILE
When you go back:
You can't sit on the floor
You get back pain on a cot
You need RO water
You catch infection from their food
But they eat with hands, sit on bricks, and walk barefoot.
You’ve become a guest in your own house.
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7. YOU GET OFFENDED EASILY
Their jokes, their slang, their loudness — you find it “too much.”
You’ve become polite but fake.
They are rude but real.
You prefer corporate correctness over village honesty.
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8. YOU DON’T NEED THEM ANYMORE
Worst of all, they need you, but you don’t need them.
That’s when the love cracks.
Because relationships survive only when need flows both ways.
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CONCLUSION
So, what’s the solution?
You don’t have to stop growing. But never forget your roots.
True upgrading means:
Keeping your hands strong, your ears open, your time available, your heart present, and your ego out.
That’s when you are truly useful to your people.
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PART 2: HEALING DIALOGUE
Scene:
An old village courtyard. Ramesh, who now lives in a metro city, visits his ancestral home after 5 years. His cousin Ravi, his mother, and his uncle sit under the neem tree.
Madhukar, the barefoot hermit, arrives during the conversation.
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Ravi:
Ramesh anna, you forgot the way to the village, or what?
Ramesh:
Life is hectic, Ravi. You wouldn’t understand.
Uncle:
Yes yes. You have become ‘city man.’
You have no time for us.
Mother:
You used to massage my feet. Now you just send tablets.
Ramesh:
Come on, amma. I help in my own way. Didn’t I send money for the roof?
Madhukar (smiling):
Money is like a spoon.
But your mother doesn’t need a spoon.
She needs your hand.
Ramesh:
But I have to survive in the city…
Madhukar:
Survive?
Or hide?
Ramesh:
What do you mean?
Madhukar:
Upgrading is not survival. It is escape.
From mud. From noise. From family. From dependence.
But when you escape all that —
You also escape the meaning of being human.
Ravi:
He can’t even eat our food now. His stomach gets upset!
Madhukar:
Because his life is already upset.
And his stomach is just following.
Mother:
I don’t need his money. I just wanted his laughter during my last years.
Ramesh (eyes moist):
Then what should I do?
Madhukar:
Upgrade inwardly.
Become more present, not more distant.
More useful, not more busy.
More human, not more polished.
Only then… you remain someone’s son, brother, friend.
Otherwise, you become just another donor — with no soul left to give.
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PART 3: CHARLES BUKOWSKI-STYLE POEM
“THE USELESS UPGRADE”
he walks in
wearing polished shoes
with feet that have never kicked a stone
since he left.
his mother asks for time
he gives a phone.
his cousin asks for help
he gives advice.
his father died two years ago
he sent a wreath —
through Amazon.
his hands are soft,
his words are clean,
his heart is missing.
his face glows in selfies
but not in storms.
his cousin builds a roof with broken tools
he builds a LinkedIn post about childhood
and calls it giving back.
he left the village
but the village left him too.
he is a man
with a thousand passwords
but
no real connection.
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