All that glitters is not gold...

By Vichara

There are times that we can feel like one of those greyhound dogs racing around a track trying to catch that elusive artificial rabbit. In the mind of the greyhound the rabbit is real, the object of desire and fulfillment. But because of the short-term memory and repetitive nature of these attempts of fulfillment the greyhound forgets that the rabbit is not real in much the same way we as humans fall prey to the smoke and mirrors of desire. We see the glitter and perceived charm of something desirable that has been dangles in front of us but once acquired it tends to hold little emotional value. The attachment to things keeps us prisoners of our own desire. Like the old adage, all the glitters is not gold, holds true as those things that have great value are things that can’t be acquired by monetary means, but by the heart.

decimate • \DESS-uh-mayt\ • verb
1 : to take or destroy the tenth part of
*2 : to cause great destruction or harm to

Example Sentence:
Farmers struggled to feed their families after their crops were decimated by blight.

Did you know?
The connection between "decimate" and the number ten harks back to a brutal practice of the army of ancient Rome. A unit that was guilty of a severe crime (such as mutiny) was punished by selecting and executing one-tenth of its soldiers, thereby scaring the remaining nine-tenths into obedience. It's no surprise that the word for this practice came from Latin "decem," meaning "ten." From this root we also get our word "decimal" and the name of the month of December, originally the tenth month of the calendar before the second king of Rome decided to add January and February. In its extended uses "decimate" strayed from its "tenth" meaning and nowadays refers to the act of destroying or hurting something in great numbers.