Two Bytes of Life
In today’s fast paced and indulgent lifestyle, one hardly gets any time to ponder on where he is heading
in his life. Almost every single day, all around us, we can see people who live through life with an
amazing amount of personal and professional ambition; but hardly anyone of them knows what they
truly seek of life. Most of the time, we live through life without bearing any sense of direction as to
where we are truly going to end up. Most of us live our lives just for the sake of doing our chores,
completing our responsibilities and becoming what this society wants us to become. Our desires;
our ambitions become a product of our teachings; the teachings themselves being derived from a
society that is; strictly speaking uninventive and rigid. To that end, how can a man truly realize what
he is supposed to be? How can man truly segregate and understand the difference between what he
wants to be and what others want him to become? The answer to that question is introspection; but
implementing the same is quite a daunting task by itself.
Today, life is exceedingly fast paced, to the point that it passes us by, before we actually get to live it. Strictly speaking, neither of us is truly living life; most of us are simply getting through it. Our professions become our alternate identities, as most of our conscious thought is utterly wasted in determining pointless ways to outwit our peers. India being known around the world as a haven for cheap labor, most of the work that we do is monotonous and uninteresting. The creativity and sheer talent that lies hidden within the minds of thousands of such Indians, thus never sees the light of the day; as we are made to work within strictly defined processes that restrict us to think between the lines. These “best practices” so to speak are invented by the West which still reserves the right to be creative in the corporate world. The art of introspection which I spoke about in the lines above is a spiritual art that demands you to think outside the box and blur the lines that bind your true potential; regretfully a task that is not so easily done in today’s world. There are many who might take offense by my words, when I equate India with cheap labor, but that is simply an indication as to where our economy stands in today’s day and age; and we, the sons of this great land of India, are so to say encumbered by the weight of this reality that lies upon us. Owing to the same, we are till date mere followers and not world leaders; but that is not really the point of contention over here.
Introspection mandates the seeker to keep with him a sufficient amount of time that he can devote to this activity. Dispassionately questioning yourself is not something that can be achieved in the chaos of the workplace; neither is it something that can be done in a moment of superficial peace, when the chaos of your workplace infests your minds. In order to enquire, to be inquisitive, one needs to detach himself from life for a brief instance; and to achieve that, one must be completely secure of his own place in life; again something that is elusive in the modern day corporate world.
The corporate world today is driven by the carrot-on-the-stick approach; something that is considered to be a pre-requisite for extracting the highest amount of productivity from a group of individuals. When done correctly, the carrot-on-stick approach instills in the man a great deal of insecurity; and that is what most of the CEOs want; they want their employees to be insecure, so that they can be driven and steered like cows; but then again, the cows earn their living in such a way; and so do we all. We
earn our daily rote of bread and wine by abiding to the whims of a single guy who doesn’t even know of our existence. We lose our sleep over trying to find ways that we can employ to optimally fulfill his requirements, but we never really give much thought to our own selves. This directly contributes to our inner turmoil and takes us farther away from realizing our true potential.
Ultimately one has to realize that in every individual there lies a dormant desire to innovate and create. Our existing jobs and monotonous lifestyle render us completely defunct to be creative in any sense or form. Eventually the need to express and the need to flourish manifests itself in deviant ways, which ultimately leads to intoxications. In today’s day and age, we see countless such working individuals who resort to a variety of addictions to just get a quick fix to the rising amount of pressure; this further leads to despondency in the long term. What we ultimately gain from this is still a question that is left unanswered at the end of the day.
Thus in order to work around all these evils of the mundane world, one needs to have a very strong foundation that makes him determined in his approach to achieve his desires. Our society for long has had this source of strength in the form of religion and the values that are instilled in our youth since the beginning. These values if instilled correctly since the childhood give a very sound foundation for the individual in his youth; and drawing upon that strength, the individual can very easily gain success in this material world. Spirituality is simply something that allows him to do this thing while being completely at peace with oneself. Even to this day, we can see that our values and our religious mindset keeps some form of control over our instincts and senses.
The way to be truly successful in life is to know what you want and to take concrete steps to achieve that goal. It is a very simple equation, but regretfully it is something that very few of us master. It is imperative to understand that our jobs, our careers and our salaries are not things that define us; but rather they are minute details that add up to our definition. In the race of defining those details, care needs to be taken to ensure that we do not lose our own selves; that still enraptured in the fallacies of this corporate world, somewhere within our hearts, we know who we truly are; for we are men, and men were created in the image of God, so that one day they themselves would create, innovate and invent. That realization is something that is pertinent to living a healthy and fulfilling life.
Thus in parting I would say naught but this; that be supremely ambitious in your professional lives, but do so on your own terms; such an attitude coupled with great determination would make you a role model for the society. In the end, it is up to ensure that no matter how hard we run in race of life, we still do not lose sight of what we truly are; and what we can truly achieve.
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December 19, 2011 12:22 am
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By manju, December 23, 2011 @ 11:16 am
Very nice thoughts an eye opener for everybody.
By medha mate, December 23, 2011 @ 1:00 pm
This article aptly describes the condition of today’s youth & rightly suggests the way to avoid going haywire.Indeed a very good article!
By Umesh, December 26, 2011 @ 12:29 pm
Again an Excellent article!. this article rightly describe the todays condition.