Choice between Million Dollars and a Beloved Partner
By: Yasir Pirzada
I have a simple question. If given a choice, what a woman would chose, a million dollars or a beloved partner? Although the question looks quite rudimentary in nature but the more I thought about it, the more complicated it turned out to be for me. And the difficulty in answering this plain and easy question is just because of the reason that I am not a woman!
In order to find an honest answer to this question, I conducted a small sample survey within my circle of friends, colleagues and relatives, both males and females. At the time of putting up the question, I also asked everybody to calculate exactly how much million dollars worth in terms of rupees so that they have fair idea what they will be getting “in lieu of” beloved partner!
The results of the “survey”, though not surprising, but were quite categorical. Almost ninety percent people said a woman would surely prefer a beloved partner while paltry ten percent were of the opinion that girls would be after million dollars. Needless to mention, all these ten percent were men.
When I was asking this question to my acquaintances, I came across some really interesting and intriguing observations also. The most intelligent observation came from a male who said, “When you give such a choice to a woman, it implicitly means that she had that beloved partner in her mind which exists in reality. So when a choice is given, she would definitely opt for her love, come what may. On the other hand, if the same choice is put before a woman who had not come across with her beloved partner yet, she may go for a million dollars.”
Another interesting response came from a female colleague who said, “I won’t tell the world about my beloved partner, will accept million dollars, and then give all the money to my love.”
“But why would you do that?” I asked with a bit of surprise. “I mean this is like going to Gujrat via Motorway!”
“No, this is because of the fact that he is already a beloved partner of someone else!” She answered with a loud laugh. Now that was something which I didn’t visualize while framing the question.
One can deduce even supplementary questions out of all this. For example, if this choice is given to a woman who is already living with a person whom she used to adore but that person is struggling in real life making both ends meet, would that lady accept a million dollars in lieu of her beloved partner? Or we can even flip the question. Think of woman who has just accepted million dollars as she didn’t have any beloved partner in her life. However, immediately after getting the money, she comes across with her dream man. Now a choice is given to her, whether she can retain money or she can forfeit her million dollars in order to get her love, what would she do? There is even a third situation which is a kind of paradox that has struck to my mind. Suppose the beloved partner of a woman is in dire need of money. When a choice is given to such a woman between love and money, she chooses money with an intention to bail out her beloved partner; however by exercising that option, she eventually looses her love as she had already availed the option of taking money. This is rather more philosophical than romantic.
As I said earlier, I am not in a position to make any guess of such “Indecent Proposals” but still I would incline to go by the “survey results”. A vast majority of the woman would surely kick the million bucks for their dream man.
Interestingly another million dollar question has just come to my mind. What a man would do in such a scenario? When I asked this question to the same intelligent male chauvinist, he laughingly said,” I would go for a million dollars and then find a woman of my choice.”
“Does it mean that woman have far more loving nature as compared to men who are mostly money minded?” I put across another question.
“Well yes,” he thought for a while, “but at the same time it also means that men are much wiser.” He laughed once again. Typical male, isn’t it?
Anyways, why to put any man or woman in such a difficult situation? Why not to ask for a dream life partner who already has half a million bucks if not full one million! Unfortunately that rarely happens. And that’s why we have to make difficult choices in life. But choices seem difficult only as long as we don’t have any set priorities. If we get our priorities clear, we won’t face any difficulty in making such choices!
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When you try, you risk failure. When you don’t try, you ensure it.
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