After a long long hiatus, I’m back, back with something
profound and deep. It’s something that I believe needs everyone to ponder on to
really realize the power of the idea.
So, finally I’m done with my
formal education (I say formal because I believe education happens throughout
your life). With two decades of education (14 years of schooling, 4 years of
graduation and 2 years of post graduation) behind me I still find myself at
crossroads. Maybe it’s an assumption that I am making, but I believe that our
generation is struck between two worlds. One is the world that belonged to our
parents and one is a world that could be ours that we ‘think’ we want.
My generation is programmed to
achieve, to compete, to on the top and being second is just not good enough.
The focus for us is education from good schools and college which will lead to
good money, growth etc. But are we missing out on LIFE instead? Are we focused
only on our work? How about a day just to contemplate on how life is? How about
reading that book that could change the way you perceive the world? How about a
fun evening with the street kids that made you go back to your childhood? What
about those lovely summer vacations you took to your grandparents place? How
much money/ growth do you think you need to have to get that summer break to
you grandparent’s house? Haven’t we somewhere lost the purpose of it all?
Possibly it’s a phenomenon that
not just the generation but the whole country is suffering. ‘Growth’ is the
buzz word. But are we considering growth to be holistic and complete or are we
just looking at the growth in a superficial sense. When we focus so much on
growing an achieving are we really being holistic in our approach. Do we give
equal importance to having a family and work? Are we as a country considering
growth only as a something that is seen in GDP numbers or in terms of how safe
our country is or how happy the country is?
We came up with the most
important number ‘0’ and now our life is all about numbers. How good a kid is
depends on the numbers in his report card, how well a person is doing depends
on the numbers in his paycheck, how successful a person is depends on how many
‘years’ he took to get there, how good a product is depends on how costly it
is… its numbers numbers numbers everywhere!!!
The reason I draw a parallel
between the society and self is because I believe for a transformation to
happen, it needs to start from the self. From self to the society – is the way
to go. So maybe if each one of us makes an effort to be more holistic in our
approach… we can together impact the way the society functions. So I guess it
will be our generation that is struck at these crossroads, that has to take the
decision, that has to give a direction for generations to come. But why me? Why
do we have to take the call? Because fortunately we have been exposed to both
these extremes and we are the only generation that can envision where each of
these paths will eventually take us.
