In one of the European countries, a case was filed in a court in which neighbors stated that they and their children were disturbed by one of their neighbors. It was stated that the neighbor was a rich person who had a very strange habit.

Whenever there appeared a new car in the market, he used to sell his old car and bought the new one and in this way, after every month or two, he was found to be riding a new and more luxurious car. Whenever he changed his car and entered the street with his new dashing car and parked it, children of the neighborhood used to gather around it and looked at with amusement and surprise.

The new car then used to become the topic of discussions in the houses of the neighbors for a week or more. Every morning and evening, when he left his house or returned home, the shining car attracted the attention of neighbors and the passerby. In evening, when the marvelous car used to return, children left their games and gathered around it. They then discussed its different features and exchanged their views about them.

This all did not end here as well. Children used to describe the new car to their parents in lengthy narratives and parents felt that the minds and feelings of children were badly governed by the attractive features of the car. On certain occasions, children complained to their parents of their own car that could not compete with the new car of the neighbor. It irritated the men when the ladies in the house mentioned the car too much or the ladies when they found men talking of the car in house, instead of something else.

If this thing had happened once, it could have been tolerated and ignored, but too often repeated act really bothered the elders of families in the neighborhood as it had snatched the contentment of their minds and the serenity of their houses so they took this extreme step. The court agreed with their complaint and directed the rich individual either to change his house or buy a car once in a year.

This habit of ostentation or showing-off is growing very rapidly in our society. On almost all the occasions, we are found to be behaving in a way that is intended to attract the attention of others and make us appear superior to others.

The things that can be easily bought from a small neighboring shop in a cheaper price is bought from a grand and large supermarket so that we should show or tell others that we can afford to shop in the 'Super Stores'.
A fine-quality coat that can be bought in 1500-2000 Afghanis from local market are bought from Dubai (Increasing number of flights to and from Dubai to Kabul is a proof of it) or either purchased from an international brand on a price that is 4-6 times higher than the local market. No doubt, the quality also improves but not as much as the price soars up. The objective is not to buy something of high quality but to show to others that we are in habit of purchasing and wearing imported clothes.

Ranging from new cars to latest and expensive mobile phones and from new and grand houses to computers and watches, and even to the clothes of children, we keep ourselves and others in a constant strain of competition and incessant race in which we want to get the attention and respect of others with the help of our external appearance.

All these instances depict a horrible fact about our society. A society, where majority are illiterate and where good character, sound personality, noble qualities and level of education are not given due importance, people with cheap personalities (majority of them have at once accumulated a lot of wealth) set a trend in which people try to appear respectable with the help of their wealth and other sources of external decoration. This shows that our society is morally and psychologically ill and needs a good treatment in this regard.

It also shows that those who were having true and genuine good qualities have hidden themselves in a corner and the stupid and the illiterate have captured the minds and feelings of all and thus they set the trends according to their limited perception and of course their carnal desires.

All these in return have pernicious effects on the characters and conduct of the members of society. People never feel themselves satisfied with their present belongings and thus everyone tries to earn and accumulate more and more wealth. This turns every member very greedy and selfish and the basis of a cutthroat competition is established in which people forget and ignore the measures of good and evil or legal and illegal. This snatching and robbing each other soon turns the people against each other and the society starts declining that would eventually result in the complete failure and destruction of the whole system of civilization.

This has also snatched the mental and spiritual contentment of the people. Now no one is satisfied with what he has and all the times, be it night or day, keeps dreaming about a life that is almost impossible to be attained in practical. His mental and spiritual contentment has been robbed by these painstaking dreams.

People have also fallen in habit of comparing themselves with others. This dangerous habit is very detrimental to one's thoughts and conduct, be it with an inferior or superior. When one compares himself with a person who is better than him, he feels himself deprived and all his thoughts are saddened by realizing this reality. When he compares himself with a person who is having less money than him, he feels a joy and of course, this joy can never be termed to be healthy and positive. This is a joy which some maniac and crank kings used to obtain by throwing the helpless slaves in front of hungry lions or making two slaves fight in a way that death of one guaranteed the life of other and thus this bloody combat always ended in the death of one.

But in my opinion, people who are to be blamed most for this are those who are having sound personalities and many other unique qualities other than wealth that can keep their hearts happy and contented. When such people lose their faith in the strength of their good qualities, people with mean characters get into the ground to set the standards. Those who are having unique and noble qualities need to have firm belief and confidence on things that are truly worthy of being proud of!