It is hard to believe that any animal could be more
dangerous or terrifying than the man-eating tiger.
But it is not the tiger or the bear which is the most
dangerous enemy of man. In truth, the most
dangerous of our enemies are the bacteria which are
so tiny that they remain invisible to the naked eye.
Small they may be, but these bacteria breed at such
a furious rate that, given favourable conditions, one
of their number can reproduce itself 10’000 times
over within a mere matter of ten hours. While a
bear or a lion only occasionally eats a man alive,
man is the constant focus of deadly bacteria.
Their species run into thousands. We are fortunate,
however, in that 99 percent are either beneficial or
harmless. Though only one percent is harmful, its
deadliness is such that it can claim the life of a man
within a matter of seconds. All fatal diseases,
according to medical science, are produced by such
microorganisms. Their very lack of bulk makes it
possible for them to enter the human system in
ways against which man has no natural system of
defence.
People are usually aware of big and obvious
dangers, and imagine they must be responsible for
all their misfortunes. But, if the truth were told, the
harm done to us by these tiny living organisms far
surpasses any havoc our bigger enemies can wreak.
Yet, when we come to think of it, the greatest
damage of all is done by those seemingly
insignificant and often short-lived moments of
neglect—moments when timely action was our
duty, when approval needed to be given or
withheld, when advice or help or self-appraisal was
needed, and we let the occasion slip by, heedless of
the consequences. Easygoing negligence can creep
into our souls, like bacteria into the body, and, if not
pulled up short, can become an ingrained attitude,
leading to moral corrosion.
A negligent attitude permits people to fritter away
their time, day after day, with no thought for the
future. Similarly, they squander substantial portions
of their income. This wasted time and pointless
expenditure may seem a trivial matter, if it is just a
question of one day—a few hours and a few rupees
don’t seem to add up to much. But if one were to
calculate the time and money thus wasted in one
year and then in a whole lifetime, it would become
clear that fully fifty percent of one’s life and
earnings had been squandered in vain pursuits.
Take the total wastage of a whole nation and the
loss assumes such enormous proportions that it
quite goes beyond the imagination.
Ref – The Moral Vision
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
