He turned in bed and saw her silhouette against the dark. His wife, the psychologist, sat up, head bowed, thoughts heavy. “Something wrong?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she sighed, “How do we get the money to send our daughter abroad for her studies?”
In the darkness, he reached for courage, not comfort. “We’ll work it out.”
Her reply came sharp: “Why do we always have to work it out? Why can’t we have enough not to worry?”
And so her husband lay awake, planning, plotting, praying for ways to ease her worry.
Across the city, another man also stirred. He wasn’t worried about money. He called his driver to bring the Mercedes to the door of his palatial bungalow. His wife lay “asleep,” though both knew she was awake. He paused, lifted the sheet, and pleaded, “Try not to do it today.”
She said nothing. He walked out. The gates closed. And the moment the car was gone, she hurried to the liquor cabinet. The bottle gleamed like a new lover. She poured, gulped, sighed. This—her daily ritual—was what she looked forward to.
At his office, the wealthy husband made the call to the psychologist. “Doctor, what do I do? She drinks all day!”
“What does she have to do once you leave home?” the psychologist asked.
“Nothing. She has servants, money, everything.”
“She needs challenges,” the psychologist said quietly. “She has nothing to fight for, nothing to solve. She’s bored. That’s her problem.”
That night, the writer husband turned in bed, restless again. His psychologist wife sensed it and whispered, “Something troubling you?”
“The same as last night,” he said. “Doesn’t it trouble you anymore?”
“It does,” she smiled in the darkness. “But today I remembered—challenges are good. We’ll work it out. And we’ll grow stronger.”
And she fell peacefully asleep.
Ever thought we should raise a toast to trouble?
Challenges stretch us, test us, keep us alive. Without them, we drown in monotony, like a fish in still water gasping for air. With them, we stay awake—not because of worry alone, but because hope and ideas keep nudging us forward.
So the next time you face a problem, don’t just sigh. Don’t just wish it away. Maybe it’s the very thing keeping you alive and kicking.
As for boredom? That’s the deadliest addiction of all. It doesn’t come in bottles, it comes in comfort. It doesn’t kill with hangovers, it kills with emptiness.
Better a sleepless night because you’re figuring out how to send your daughter abroad, than a sleeping pill because you’ve nothing left to fight for.
Challenges may wrinkle your forehead, but boredom will wrinkle your soul.
So, my dear reader, when life throws you a mountain—don’t grumble. Climb it. Otherwise, like that lady with her costly liquor, you might just find yourself drowning, not in problems, but in the absence of them.
And that, believe me, is a far more dangerous place to be in…!