First, we should learn the lessons. All this happens because we live half consciously without understanding human nature and the rules of the game of life. Human beings cannot generally be trusted with money and land. To just lend money without a proper plan or means to retrieve if motives change is not a wise thing to do. The ancient saying that neither borrow nor lend money holds good always. Professional lenders are a different class of people who know how to extract. In general, however, the advice is not to lend (or borrow) money and, if you do give, be prepared to lose it! People should learn to live within their means and earn by honest means.
In any case, once given, one should take it that if at all it comes back, it will be only a bonus. One can look at this and other losses in similar ways, that nothing really belongs to anyone. Everything changes hands, especially money. It is a sobering thought and a lesson of life that nothing really belongs to us. And while it is never a good thing to lose what is given to us, yet if it is lost, one should accept it as the way much of humanity lives. One can take it as the Will of God, which is best, or a hard lesson learnt at a heavy price that absolute trust should be reserved only for God. One should offer the whole incidence to the Divine and leave it to Him to take care of all your needs. To keep getting anxious about it makes things only worse. One should do what one must to get it back, but with the rider that if it doesn’t, then perhaps it was meant to be like that. There is, of course, no better way to face these things than by faith and surrender to God’s Will, who is the All-seeing arbiter. What truly is meant to come to us will come. And what goes away was perhaps not meant to be with us beyond the time we were given to hold it.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
