Let me tell you about this book of short stories, "To Cut A Long Story Short" by Jeffrey Archer..in particular, 2 short stories which i find very interesting - "Endgame" and "The Grass is Always Greener". I think both stories are snapshots portraying certain aspects of human nature. The first - curiousity, and the latter - contentment, or rather the lack of it.

The first story tells of a wealthy man who pretends to be bankrupt to see how other ppl around him would react and respond towards him. It's a very tempting exploration of one those "What If"s ppl always hv.

In the second story, the story starts by telling us about this tramp who stays outside this company building and the problems he face. He envies the person who is in a slightly better position than him. Slowly, the story builds up step by step, as the focus shifts from person to the person whose position he envies. All the way till the company president or smtg like tt..and guess what? The company president envies the tramp, for having such a simple, carefree life, without all the worries he has. Each person is focused on his own problems, life as viewed from his perspective, unable to see the whole picture. But then so what if we see the whole picture? So tt we will stop feeling so sorry for ourselves? If each person in the chain could see their problems in the whole big picutre, how would they behave differently? Would they all be willing 2 trade places? Even if they trade places, would they really be happy?