A professor who was like
a role model recommended us the book 7 Habits of highly effective
people; we solemnly read the book with a meek expectation to become
instantly like our mentor, nothing of that happened! It was a
compelling book, quintessence of all the success literature in the world
squeezed to create Effectiveness 101 for dummies, the book was
simple to read but knotty to apply as it asks you to plan, execute, validate,
plan… keep track of your progress through diaries, charts and for a receptive
young person it seemed a very attainable state, all that you do is create your
vision statement and work backwards, how simple that can be? If Japanese can
reverse engineer and create wonders why can’t I? The thought process ended then and there...
Like many good motives in life, rubber never meets the road…
Any good book doesn’t
matter if it’s a book on success or a famous failure, they inspire you, coerce
you to introspect. In a few days once you are out of the spell, the reality
with its chaos within and outside surrounds, the grand motive evaporates, a
finicky reason not to apply the rules is Experience is the best teacher!
We learn when we see, feel, fall than the grand ideals in books as they are
someone else’s experiences. Everyone is unique and like “MADE BY MYSELF” tag, it’s not easy to put into action certain
concepts even if we like them, but give credit where it’s due, the book 7 habits accentuated that need a purpose in life, the concepts
‘think with the end in mind’, ‘effectiveness’ lingered on.
After many years the
quiescent questions for an inquisitive mind became active-
Can someone have a
concrete vision right at the beginning and work backwards, then when does the
beginning start?
Will we have enough
maturity right at the beginning to have a complete vision?
Is Vision, the thoughts we
carry subconsciously every day, if yes we don’t write them on anywhere?
Even if someone uncommon
did have a vision, isn’t life is a long a time to keep the permanence and
application to do the checks and balances? more over today’s world is too
chaotic (may be it always was) to keep a tab at every stage of our life as the
priorities keep shifting- some by our own initiation, some driven from the
outside, vicissitudes of everyday life keep us on our toes with hardly any time
to think about the unknown, distant vision.
On the contrary, my
observation is we are good at attainable goals with immediate and tangible
benefits, like when we were young adding few qualifications to our name was the
goal- it had socio-economic benefits,
as we grow the goals progress too, in a qualitative, calmer and mature
way. If we are simple by nature, the goals can be as **simple as
make more money or find ways to make more money, take care of the family, be
stable and enjoy all the good things in life, the dilemma is for complex
people, the goals can be very quirky as they cannot be definite, or too many, they
hang in the midair waiting to be clarified, this leads to another question- Are
Vision, Goals the most important aspects to be an successful?
** Simple and complex is only for
generalization, they are abstract and topics by themselves
Popular success
literature puts too much emphasis on vision, goals as a formula to win; the
persuasive writers make the reading an enjoyable ride, when the reader finishes
the book... It’s a nice, wholesome feeling...Everything that starts well, ends
well. A right analogy to put
this formulaic approach is you have a simple choice-black and white,
if you choose one you win if not you lose, that’s where I see an
incompleteness. Major part of our active life we don’t spend in black and
white, we spend in the gray area- the journey, many ways to look it- everyday
life, efforts we put in to reach our goals, the drive to reach a vacation spot…which
is conveniently ignored as routine, as focus is too much on the end goal, the
big pot of gold! Disturbed if we don’t reach the goal, thrilled if we reach, overlooking
the journey where we spend bulk of our time, we need to enjoy every day to make
the end goal a seamless transition; end points are mere by-products not the
whole. Goals give us momentary happiness, make the journey a gratifying one and
feel the true bliss!
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