Life is always about choices. Choices we make govern our life. Success has always been very important to me. I almost always had to compete against strong opponents - me having less resources and more responsibilities. Original me is a person of integrity, honesty, principles, values, respect and dignity. I remain so in the process of life till now. Of course have done my part of mistakes. But in all have managed to remain as I am.
But in retrospect I see that though I have not done injustice, I have tolerated a lot of injustice and wrong behavior of many people. Many times I needed them and could not afford to go in their bad books. Many times I did not have time to fight with them. I was very focused in my life and always avoided or ignored the stuff not related to my point of focus. I could have resisted the injustice but I was so focused on my goals that I ignored the injustice. Sometimes even I did injustice to some extent in the name of 'chalta hai' or 'everyone is doing it'.
There have been many incidences where I had to be diplomatic. When the power is in someone else's hand and he/she can decide your success, you automatically become diplomatic in dealing with that person. e g A lab worker is stubborn and will not take sample of patients. You have to handle 20 patients in the ward. You can not go yourself and carry the sample. You have 2 options- carry the sample on your own and ignore the patients for a while or be diplomatic and manage the lab assistant by praising good things in him and request him to do his work. So in the professional life and the personal life , I have always faced many situations where I was helpless and had no way to complain. I had to ensure good results always. I used complaining, scolding. But it did not work.I could have fought against such lab workers. But I was busy with my goals and ambitions and hadn't had time to address the issue related to this injustice.
Another example- if you want to start any good thing in village, you have to request the Sarpanch to inaugurate it. Otherwise you can not start.You know he has 'n' no of bad things in him. But you don't care for him but for the results for the poor villagers.
This is not just my story. It is a common story of all middle class students who have to ignore and avoid 'n' number of things in life and focus on their goals. We are always taught to look at the big picture and ignore irrelevant and trivial stuff. I understand and agree with it to some extent. But with time I guess every injustice and wrong thing in this world becomes trivial and your 'focus' becomes your 'selfishness' and nothing else. I am seeing many of my friends doing that. Till the time of survival if you are doing that, I can understand. But even in prosperity if you chose such a path, I think that is a shortcut. In my view you would be compromising on your integrity in doing so. In my view we should never compromise on our integrity. It is something that defines you. Its a 'identity' kind of thing.
Demands are ever lasting. Greed is never satisfied. Nothing is enough. Ours dreams and goals become bigger and larger. That should happen. But I think we have reached a stage where we can ignore shortcuts while maintaining the focus on our goals. In avoiding shortcuts we are choosing to give more time and efforts (long cut and sacrifices) to reach our goals. The cost and the sacrifice related to the shortcut is definitely not worth our integrity. There is a perception amongst some of us that rich people exploit and they are bad. So its ok to do bad to become rich. You don't necessarily have to become a bad person to become rich. You can be both good and rich. I have seen many people who are good as well as rich. We can join their party !!! :)
So Avoid shortcuts and focus on integrity and choose long cut !!! What say ?
( Just writing thoughts in my mind. No intention of advising anyone. I am too small to advise anyone. Whatever is coming to my mind, I am writing it in the blog and even I will try to follow what has been written )
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says that the cause of anxiety is impatience. We sow and expect immediate results. Life is so instant these days. We are bound to believe in short cuts. But Life is not a short cut. Many times one has to continue doing good, maintain integrity and patience and survive the hardship. It is very easy to lose faith in difficult and trying circumstances. But if we are more patient and persistent in our efforts in the right direction and if we don't necessarily be dependent on the short term results and have a vision then we will lead our life in a more happy way. If we sow and keep on nurturing then one day we will get fruits. It is essential not to lose sight and vision while nurturing.
