Short Story: Overzealousness destroys practicability

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John Jones had been married to his wife Janet, for forty years. He was ten years older than Janet, and he had retired, while she was still working. They had a joint bank account, and all had worked pretty well with this, for most of their marriage, so far. When, John's old mother died, and left him a large sum of money though, he also deposited this into their joint account. When his tax accountant told him, at tax time, that he had paid a lot of extra tax on the interest in this account now, due to it being a joint account, and the fact that half of the interest had to be declared, and added to his wife's total income pool, for that year. The accountant suggested to John to open a bank account, solely in his own name, to avoid their having to pay this interest next year. And so, John did this, and for a few years, he avoided paying the extra tax, as all of the interest came into his bank account, and as he was not working, he paid no tax on this income. The problem was, though, that John became greedy, overzealous, in his not paying any tax, on his bank interest. He would now also transfer his wife's pay, from the joint account into his own account too, and so no tax was paid on that money now either. Then, John suddenly had a heart attack, and died. His wife found herself with no money in her account. She could not access his account. It would come to her, of course, as a part of his will, but with probate, and other paperworks, it would take at least 3 to 6 months, for this to be done. His poor wife had to try to live on only her salary for all of this time, and she had no access to their other savings, for solicitor costs, and funeral expenses, and other bills too, which John had always paid for her, from his account. A plan had come unstuck. A big problem was caused by overzealousness, turning into greed, and bypassing the practicalityness of the needed situation, or possible future eventuations. Takeaway life lesson from this story: Greed does not care for others, and as soon as you become greedy for avarice, money, or possessions of any kind, you lessen your common sense, your awareness, even your love, for your partner, and the world, putting yourself, and your own needs first, above all else. Step back from greed, and stay with love, and live from the awareness of what might happen, not what greed wants to happen for you. Do not be blinded by greed. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com Do not place all of your eggs into one golden piggy bank. You will invariably become unstuck, as John did here.