Rethinking Usefulness

 We all strive to be useful. As children, we do household chores to be useful; as students, we study hard to become useful adults. As adults, we get jobs and make money by being useful, continuously learning and honing our skills to maintain our usefulness.

I had always accepted this as the norm – the inherent necessity of being useful. However, my perspective was challenged by a Korean philosopher during one of his lectures. He questioned this deeply ingrained idea, pointing out that only humans obsess over being useful. I quickly realized he was right. Other life forms, whether animals or plants, don’t concern themselves with usefulness. No tree aims to absorb more CO2 for the environment, even though we value planting trees for this very reason. No tree aspires to grow straight to be better building material.

He further illustrated that when any animal or plant becomes 'useful' in human terms, it often spells trouble for them. Trees that are thick, straight, and strong are the ones cut down for construction, while the thin, curvy, and weak ones survive.

This insight made me ponder: Are we overvaluing the need to be useful at the expense of our happiness, and when is it okay to simply 'be' without being useful? How can we match our need to be helpful with the fact that nature doesn’t care about being useful? What do you think?

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