How Much Land Does a Man Need?

For some reason, I’ve had this story stuck in my head. I read it in a book some time ago, and I was very fascinated. I was compelled to read it again, but not remembering exactly where I saw it, I had to go through a couple of books in my bookshelf. Turned out the author was talking about this story written by Tolstoy, so I went ahead and found the original text and read it.

This short story by Tolstoy, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”, is about this peasant named Pakhom. He was possessive, and always complained how he could live a better life, if only he had more land. He kept wanting more and more, as he was never satisfied with what he had. One day, he hears about this amazing offer. He could buy as much land as he wanted for the same price, all he had to do was to go around and mark the area as large as he wants, in one day. He would start at sunrise, and as long as he comes back to the starting point by sunset, all the land he marks would be his. He can hardly wait with the anticipation of all the land he could have and what he could do with it. So on that day he walks for miles and miles, without resting, wanting to cover as much distance as he can. As he goes on, he feels he went too far in order to come back to the starting point in time. Towards the end he’s running and crying and fearing that he’d never be able to live on the land he worked so hard for. Finally he reaches the point and as he takes his last step, he falls and dies. All he needed then, was six feet of land to lie in.

The moral of the story, obviously for one, is greed. But I see a few others. The moral of the story for me posting this? I have no idea. The book where I originally read about this story by the way, is A Better Way to Live by Og Mandino. It comes up in a chapter that talks about living today, and how we often set goals that don’t necessarily bring hapiness.

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