Amazon

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

MY LIFE TIME DOUBT

From our childhood we are taught that honesty, hard work and sincerity takes us to great heights. Honesty certainly gives peace of mind. To a great extent it satisfies ego. So is sincerity. Again hard work gives us pleasure if we do it as celebration and not as duty. But I have not seen in my life that any of these responsible for a person to reach great heights. Assuming that there is a person who has reached great heights with these attributes, he would be an exception. All those who are honest, hard working and sincere have not reached great heights.
We are taught that education is very important. It will help us to become successful. Probably this might have been right if the word education had been understood properly. In reality education is understanding life as a whole.
But the moment the word education is used, what occurs to our mind is going to school, college, getting degrees is education. If this is the concept of education, education would not make us successful. This sort of education which is pursued with the idea of becoming successful would make you a mediocre. You will end up an Advocate, an Engineer or a Doctor and you start thinking that you have become successful. Becoming a professional and earning little money or even more money cannot be the definition of success.
We are taught that you should be good, people should like you, people should call you good, everyone should like you. It is good to be good because it gives you inherent and inbuilt satisfaction. But the moment people know that you are good, they would exploit you. At least majority of them would exploit you. The moment people like you, they are comfortable with you. The moment there is a sense of comfort, they misbehave. They don’t maintain the distance. They don’t respect your privacy. They don’t care to know your values or wishes. No, the proper way is to be good, but no one should know that you are a good person. Why should we make our goodness a product available in the market.
You are taught that you should obey parents. If you obey parents what will happen to your originality. Parents in most cases are prejudiced, have an axe to grind in your life by having their own hopes to be achieved through you. They have no objective interest in your life. Their interests are all subjective. They want you to achieve whatever they like.
Be it parents or elders, you have to certainly listen to them with respect, assess their suggestions and reject or accept depending on merits of the suggestion. Where is the question of obeying the parents?
From young age children should be taught that obedience is not a virtue and children should be encouraged to think that they are competent, capable to accept or reject advise and their duty is to only consider the suggestions.
Humility is said to be very good. One of the meanings given to humility is meekness. Humility may mean not to think high of yourself or not to show that you are above others. Humility for all practical purposes is to project yourself to be weak knowing fully well that you are not weak. Why should there be humility? Let us project ourselves the way we think we are.
Humility does not mean not to show disrespect to others. If the advise is not to show disrespect to others or not to ill-treat others, it would be a good advise. We have no business to ill-treat, disrespect or in any way interfere with others’ life. But in the name of humility we are trying to bring down ourselves. Humility is not a good quality.
From start to end everything we are taught at our young age when we have impressionable age, when the age is such that whatever is taught gets imprinted permanently is incorrect. Probably if these things are set right the way the world would steer itself would be different.
I honestly feel that what is being taught to young children is wrong. I honestly feel we should tell them that honesty, work and sincerity is not enough. To become successful originality, conviction to say what you believe, confidence in yourself to proclaim what you believe, love in yourself to achieve what you want are essential. In that connection to be sincere, honest and doing extensive work with pleasure (not as duty and as such is not hard work) is the correct way.
Education does not end with attending schools and colleges. Attending schools and colleges is essential. But to treat it as education is wholly improper. Education is knowing life, knowing the world, knowing the practical aspects of living, knowing that reasons do not prevail, knowing the people are senseless and they constitute majority and knowing how to deal and work in this unreasonable mad world, to know the psychology of people. Education is much more. It escapes any precise definition. But certainly education cannot be confined to attending to schools, colleges and getting degrees.
The moment you have proper education you would not like to be known as a good person. Education would teach you that world is unreasonable, senseless and as such it exploits you if you are known to be good. The moment you know this, you yourself would not like to be called good, although you would like to be good.
Obedience is to surrender yourself. You can never do that. You cannot reduce yourself to a non-entity which would be the result if you are obedient to some one. (Exception to masters)
Humility is bad. You must be strong, world should know that you are strong. Only strong people are respected. Mighty is always right. You must be mighty. People should know that you are mighty. Humility kills the respect that you otherwise command. Humility makes you look good which as I said is a very bad situation.
I don’t know why children are taught wrong aspects. When I disagree with the whole world I get my life time doubt.
“Is there anything seriously wrong with me?”
I hope some one would help me to solve my lifetime doubt.

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My 2 paise :-)
    There's no absolute right or wrong, good or bad. Everything varies based on the point of reference. For instance, if there was a situation where a lie could've averted a catastrophe, being honest may not be considered a good thing to do.

    It's about striking a balance between all the qualities. The tipping point depends on the reference which keeps varying from situation to situation, person to person.

    Like yin and yang, opposing qualities co-exist. The presence of one gives rise to the existence of the other. There is no good when there is no bad and vice versa. We just need to mix them in right proportions. To categorically say humility or obedience is not good/right, would be taking it out of context. We need to mix obedience with assertiveness, humility with pride, might with meakness. And, true education probably should give us the tools and wisdom necessary to achieve the right balance between these opposing alternatives in every situation. People who are successful are probably so because they succeeded in achieving this balance, not because they were completely honest or dishonest, obedient or assertive, humble or egoistic.

    Now, why should one go to such lengths to achieve a balance, when one can effortlessly stay one way or the other. I think that's CHOICE (a different subject of conversation altogether).

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope the blog deals with behaviors of the children. The blog is very relevant if children has a mautured brain like the author. Children are children who require guidance and directions as well. If children are intelligent enough to analise the matters as cited in the blog, thy do not re quire any guidance or directions. I think it is too much to expect it out of the children.

    ReplyDelete