“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.” I saw this higly inspirational movie “ Shawshank Redemption “ during my school days. After the movie, we had a long discussion session regarding the same movie. I was struck by the acting of Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Although, it was just a movie, it tells a lot about our lives. After wrongly being framed for double muder , Andy starts his life sentence in prison with a highy optimistic nature and a well settled attitude towards his plan to escape.
Throughout our lives , we are told by different important people in our lives that earning excellent money is the first step to lead a happy life. But no one tells us how much dollars are sufficient to lead a good life. So, throughout our end, we keep on working hard to earn more and more money. But, in the process, we donot move on to next step after money to achieve to be happy.
When we get our first job, we think our salary is not enough and we keep on working hard and hard to get more and more hike. But even after getting a very good salary and very good salary, we are not happy. We think with the added responsibilities in their lives, we are not getting good salary. Oh! This vicious circle goes on throughout our lives .
Recently , I watched “The Pursuit of Happyness”. The excellent well made movie based on the true story of Chris gardener talks about the beginning of a life – changing professional endeavor that will eventually becomes his path to success. Chris Gardener acted by brilliant Will Smith says to his son “ Don’t even let someone tell you , you cannot do something, not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People cannot do something themselves, they want to tell you , you cannot do it. You want something, go get it. “”. I loved the above lines. What I liked about Chris Gardener is that he realizes what he should do which would make him happy. When he meets the guy in luxurious car, he asks “ I just have two questions for you. What you do and how you do it”. After getting the reply he thinks that being a stock broker is the only thing which can make him happy. After that time, he makes his dream to achieve his goal to be happy . Chris Gardenr’s life is a real motivation for people who are in pursuit of happiness. Throughout most of our lives, we are in dilemma to take risk and do something which can probably make us happy.
When we are young, we think that we can achieve anything. But as we start getting older, we start confining to few achievable targets. Is this the sign of losing dreams or realizing our limitations ? But ,people whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena Kapoor in the first half of hindi movie Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark.
Imagine the spark to be a lamp’s flame. The first aspect is nurturing – to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.
To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for us . It isn’t any external measure – a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.
Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When we have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices ,financial freedom is a big achievement.
But it isn’t the lust for earning big money is the purpose of life. If that was not the case, Mr Mukesh Ambani or Bill Gates would not show up for work. JK Rowling wouldnot look for writing new novel on “Harry Potter, PSY wouldnot be singing another song after his block buster song “Gangnam style”. Al Pacino would stay at home and not act any more. Steve Jobs wouldnot had worked hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work every day?
They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If we work hard and prove our worth to company , we can easily improve our value in company. If we make an effort to interact with people, we will do better in convincing our clients and in turn getting new projects because of goodwill spread by our clients. If we practice, our sports abilities will get better. We may also know that we cannot become like Sachin Tendulkar, yet., but we can get to the next level of our current level of fitness. Striving for that next level is important.
Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature’s design.
I must add, please don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.
There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.
You must have read some quotes – Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school. Where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.
One last thing about nurturing the spark – don’t take life seriously. Mrs. Sudha Miglani ,my favorite teacher in school used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked her, if those jokes would take away something from the boring History lessons. Then she said, said – “don’t be serious, be sincere. Enjoy your history lessons with a smile ,otherwise it would come back to haunt you in exam, you cannot run away from it. “
Remember dear friends, We are people, not programmed devices. At the end of the day, no one will remember your wonderfully presented power point presentation, but will remember how good or bad you were. So, be sincere and logical.
Hippie Korea 