Searching for lost treasure

We are all searching for lost treasure. Some because someone told us of its existence, some because we have a nagging suspicion that it’s out there somewhere. Sometimes it’s necessary to swim upstream to retrieve this lost treasure. But when we realise that that “treasure” is not a true measure of our own self, or worth the will needed to push us up stream, then yielding to the current is not defeat but practical wisdom.

Nor should we swim upstream just because others are doing so. There can be strength in numbers but also danger in mass illusions. Just imagine the look on everyone’s face when they arrive at the source of the stream, exhausted from all that swimming, distraught at seeing no treasure at all.

Going down stream has its own dangers too. Are we just looking for the easiest way out? Are we just letting chance dictate our fate? Is there anything downstream that we are floating towards? Just because it’s an easy ride, it doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile.

So the question is: where’s the treasure? The truth is, there’s probably treasure in different places: some upstream, some downstream, some on top of a mountain, some underground. We need to use our time wisely and expend our effort in the right way.

If we are looking for treasure under the ground, we need to dig long enough in one place to see if it’s there. There’s no use digging just below the surface in place after place because we haven’t given any place a real chance. We have to stick it out with one hole to see if it’s there or not. If there’s truly no sign of it, then we move on. But we don’t want to dig too deeply either, and spend years and years grinding away at a lost cause. How deep is too deep or too shallow? No one can tell us. We have to feel it out in the dirt.

Will we one day discover that the treasure was inside us all along? Will we regret all the moving around to and fro, all the yearning and disappointment, all the effort and pain? Or will we understand that we had to do something. We couldn’t just sit and do nothing, wait it out. For if we did, we would not discover the treasure within.