Since the old days, a person’s worth has often been measured by material accumulation. Historically, it meant the number of cattle or the amount of grain stored; now it means the number of cars, houses, bank account balances, and stock portfolios.
In the media, the ultimate measure of an individual’s success is often based on Forbes rankings, while a corporation’s status is usually defined by being listed in the S&P 500. On the international stage, nations’ success is mainly judged by economic data such as their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) figures. At every level—personal, corporate, and national—material wealth is often used as the primary metric of success.
This economic metric is chosen mainly because materials appear tangible, quantifiable, and universally understood. We can count the number of cars built, track the revenues, and compare these concrete numbers across cultures and contexts. Material accumulation, therefore, offers the appealing illusion of objective success measurement.
But does this dominant metric of materials truly reflect our success, and ultimately our happiness?
I was once involved with an ethical dilemma that would leave us uneasy for years. The patient was a child diagnosed with a serious but treatable medical condition. The recommended protocol was clear: surgery followed by medical treatment. The treatment had more than an 90% success rate. Without it, the disease would progress and the outcome would be much worse.
The parents were well-educated, loving people who simply believed that a radical change in diet, combined with certain alternative therapies, would cure their child. Our team presented the medical evidence and the likely scenario if prompt treatment isn’t done. Nothing worked.
In the summer of 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist and director of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos laboratory during World War II, watched the first nuclear test he and his team developed light up the New Mexico desert. The mushroom cloud rose, he quoted the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
This moment highlights an undeniable truth about human history: once we acquire knowledge, it transforms not only us but also our connections with everything around us. Throughout history, humans have harnessed knowledge to save lives, but it can also be wielded destructively.
