For the love of money

Dear Readers,

I saw a movie today called "The Box" and I remember thinking what an odd title for a movie.. What was even more odd was the movie itself by the time it was halfway through. I was sitting in front of my pc in the living room battling with the internet (Nigerian internet connection is story for another day) and job applications when my eye caught the movie. I really wanted to get on with the job application but then something about the movie drew my attention and I called it quits with the internet. 

To summarize the movie, a regular couple with a kid fall prey to the clutches of greed and the lust for more than what one should have, especially if not obtained through credible means. Imagine you wake up one morning and a package wrapped in a box is in front of your door, you open the package and you find an even more exotic looking box and all you see is a button to press. The box comes with a note telling you to expect a visit from someone at a certain time of the day. Your visitor shows up and you open the door to the most scary looking man you've seen in your life. He's scary but his manners precede his looks and so you invite him into your house because your curiosity gets the best of you (after all, we're only human) and you want to know why this box has been delivered to you. The stranger tells you that you have 2 choices: "you press the button and somewhere in the world, a stranger unknown to you dies and you receive a million dollars!!!" OR " you don't press the button and you don't get a million dollars, and he comes back the next day to retrieve the box and its as though the event never happened". What would you do? Option #1 or option #2? Think about it carefully before you answer within yourself... Imagine that this money would: pay your child's school fees, take care of your mother's hospital bills because she's ill with cancer, you'd be able to get rid of your rickety second hand car which you've driven for as long as you cared to remember, your wife could afford new clothes and a holiday which she's been nagging you about and lastly your landlord wouldn't have legal right to kick you out of his house because you've been living in it rent free for 6months!! Whew, talk about a 'blessing' in disguise right?? 

So you and your wife have 24 hours to make the decision and you tell yourself "there's no catch to the offer because someone unknown to you somewhere in the world would die anyway and besides, we're all gonna die someday right?!"... So you did it, you pressed the button and guess what happens next?  You get the million dollars and instantly you can't believe what you've done! Your conscience eats at you and you don't want the cash anymore but its too late, Pandora's box has been unleashed! Your life for the next couple of days is a living hell, you can't make sense of what is going on, the voice of conscience and morality speaks through strangers to your soul, you can't spend the money because its ill gotten, the strange man won't stop calling you and you feel like you're soaking up the heat from hell. You want OUT of this nightmare, you wish it was a dream but its real, so real that your son is kidnapped and when he comes back to you., he's blind and deaf and there's only one way to undo this mistake.. "kill your wife (she pushed the button, go figure!! its always the women bringing the men down aye? thanks eve!) and your son's senses are restored OR enjoy the million dollars for the rest of your life but live with the consequences of your actions at the peril of your son's sanity"... Wow, talk about "everything that can go wrong, going wrong", all because you made a mistake...

This movie was kinda scary but it was deep and soul searching and those with a third eye can appreciate the moral of the story.. And so I ask this question, "how far would you go for the love of money?"... Its easy to think that you could never do something like this, and yes you're probably right to think that you wouldn't go as far as indirectly taking another human life for money. What if it wasn't a life at stake but someone's job, or a company's financial stability, or even your job? Worse still, what if your soul was at stake all because of your desire for more money?....

This movie is not just about money, its about the choices that we make and the waterfall effect they have on us, other people and outcomes. Think about how the way you live your life reflects on other people and more importantly on your soul.. Where do we draw the line between our desires and our conscience? 

Food for thought... 

Coco Chinny.