(What Are You Willing to Sacrifice for Your Obsession?)
“I phoned him several times. I needed him to come and attend to my AC switch, but his line was unreachable. I thought I’d try again later. Then I opened Facebook and saw the shock of my life. I had been calling a dead man.
He was my electrician. He handled almost all the electrical work in my house. Very humble, dependable, and always smiling. I never imagined that one day I would be calling his number and discovering that he was no longer alive at just age 29.
According to the story shared by his family, he had travelled to work for an old friend who had entrusted him with managing his gold business. Some of the workers reportedly questioned the appointment. Why should he manage the business when they had been there for years? The owner, however, trusted his friend and kept him in the position.
About a month later, he began complaining of stomach pains. He left work and eventually went to the hospital. His condition deteriorated rapidly. He reportedly vomited repeatedly until he passed out and died. His family said the cause was food poisoning, and suspicion fell on some coworkers who had allegedly bought the food he ate.
I cannot independently establish what happened. But if the story is true, one question refuses to leave me: how can the desire for a position become so strong that someone could be willing to sacrifice another person’s life for it?”
Reflection
That question unsettles me. Sometimes obsession begins with something perfectly understandable: the desire to succeed, or simply to prove that we are capable. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting these things. The danger begins when what we want becomes so important that everything else starts looking expendable.
If the allegations surrounding my electrician’s death were true, the problem would not simply be that someone wanted a job. Wanting a position is ordinary. The deeper problem would be the point at which another human being became an obstacle rather than a human being.
That is one of the darkest destinations of obsession: it narrows our vision until the thing we want occupies so much space that the cost to others becomes invisible.
Perhaps that is why we should occasionally examine the hidden bill of our own pursuits. What have your pursuits been costing you lately? What have you sacrificed to keep something that was supposed to make your life better?
Not every sacrifice is wrong. Growth requires sacrifice, but the question is whether the sacrifice is proportionate, chosen and life-giving—or whether you are slowly sacrificing yourself and others simply because you cannot stop.
A healthier relationship with what matters to us does not mean becoming less ambitious or less passionate. You can fight for an opportunity without forgetting the dignity of the person standing beside you. Sometimes maturity is not knowing how to get more; it is knowing what you must never be willing to lose while getting it.
And if there is one lesson I would carry from this story, it is this: whatever we pursue should never become so important that it makes us careless with people. Our daily activities may seem small—how we compete, speak, negotiate, respond to disappointment, pursue opportunities, treat colleagues, or react when someone gets what we wanted.
Yet, character is often revealed in these ordinary moments. Be ambitious, but be charitable. Protect your interests, but protect people’s dignity too. Pursue what matters, but remember that no achievement is worth becoming the kind of person who can no longer see the human cost of getting it.
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