You have it - you enjoy, You dont - sit back!

It was not long back, when we were taught in schools about the 3 basic needs of mankind. Textbooks and teachers listed them as follows:

• Food
• Clothing and
• Shelter

Do these so called facts still hold true in today's world? In my various encounters with life, I have realized that whats said above is probably not true anymore. I am not saying that things have completely changed, but at least the order in which these needs appear, has. With the passage of time, a relatively newer need has surfaced and has gained prominence over the others. In today's world our top most need is something which we can never get enough of...

Money..

Money, which Wikipedia defines as any token or other object that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts.

But is has surely become more than just a token or an object. Money is inevitable. We need it to live our lives. The system of the world says so. If you have it, you enjoy, if you don't, sit back. We need money for food, we have to buy it. We need it for drinking water, we have to pay our water bills or again, buy bottled water! People who stay far away from their dear ones, have to again spend money, to talk to them. So its money again to even talk to our dear ones. We need to pay our telephone bills, we pay for the internet connection, we pay for snail mails (people do use it). So its money again. Another strange thing here is that to do all this, the money we pay, goes to people we might never even talk to or even see. According to me, (though my view, in the big picture, doesn't count!) we need to change. The concept of money should be virtualised. We can have a world were money doesn't really exist. We can think of it as an improved version of the Barter system. We can have our knowledge and skills being exchanged for services and goods that we use or buy. Or we can even think of a world where money can be replaced by virtual money. As an example, consider a system where all payments are made using the prepaid balance in our mobile phone accounts. We go to buy something, and the retailer could deduct money from our prepaid account. Similarly, we offer our services to someone, and we get our prepaid accounts credited with the appropriate amount. Every payment could be made using the simple mobile phone. And now, because of the advent of technology, the same money could be used for variety of purposes like talking, surfing the net, etc. Though this is a far fetched dream and just a dream, it would really be a great idea to virtualize money. Then perhaps people will be more happy, because their needs will be intertwined with their services they offer. Till something like this happens, if you have it, enjoy, if not, just sit back!