This may sound preposterous but it sure has some element of worth in it for acceptance. This is – all things tangible has some intangible as it precondition for success and utility. Secondly, we all live in such times of cluttered confusion in contemporary culture that we often miss these intangibles and that is why real and true successes, worth and utilities elude us. Let us understand it....
This we have to see and accept in terms of things we are doing, especially the young men and women. Often, we listen about how young men and women start as ‘good prospects’ for careers and other life-living attainments and how they finally end up as something very ‘mediocre’ or something, which they do not ‘enjoy and value’.
Often, when you research and dwell at the real cause of this sad turn of things, you find a very common cause, which we can term as – ‘Lack of linearity in thought-action of young people and their own families’. As there is lack of few ‘intangibles’ in them and their families, many young ones fail in attaining the tangibles of life, which they deserve. Tragically, many young ones end up with suicides or worse, with a poor self-worth and self-respect.
We need to list things – the ‘intangibles’, which are responsible for this all –
1. Organization – The young people and their families need to have a well-organized thought-action plan, before they set out for their life-goals. Often, families are not on the same plane with young one’s thought process. This split and conflict is calamitous. Often, families set out a very loosely generic idea for their young ones to follow. Like, most families ask their kids to be ‘successful’. However, families do not have organized idea and practical framework about what they think as ‘successful’. Once we have all our notions well organized, everything has better chances of falling in right place. Chances of success are better when a kid knows well in advance and in clear terms what he or she is expected to do. Often, a kid of a musician dad fares better than a doctor or lawyer. Musician’s kid has this optionlessness ingrained early in his or her mind and is trained since early as a musician.
2. Communication – Often, families and young people do not adequately speak out well and in advance on crucial issues. It is important that before the young ones set out for their careers and life-roles, the family should sit and talk well and enough. If gaps remain in perceptions of young ones and their families, about success, wroth and utilities of life and careers, disorganization creeps in and every hell breaks loose. In contemporary clutter cultures, the worst of inter-personal and relationship disasters are usually huge communication-collapse. We don’t sit together enough; we don’t hug enough and talk enough.
3. Acceptance – This is most crucial. Both young ones and their families must accept the ground realities and hard facts, about contemporary world they live in, before setting out for their careers. We are a highly over-populated world with very little opportunities at the top level and concentration of resources. Only 5% of people own 95% of world’s resources. All nations, especially developing nations face huge unemployment levels. The hard and sad fact is – it is not necessary that even if you are good and even best, you would get to the very few ‘best opportunities’ available. We all need to accept, “we should hope and aspire for best but should be equally ready for worst and at least, less than best.” Why? Because, life and its worth, success and utilities are so wide and holistic idea. Jobs in top companies and big bucks are important but in the long run, they do not matter everything for happiness and wellness of life. Someone may have 10,000 times more money than you but he or she may not be 10,000 times happier and well than you. Joy and wellness matters more than any tangible. There are so many intangibles, which are more important in life. Families need to accept failures as magnanimously as they accept successes.
There is a simple yet somehow scary realism – If families do not and cannot provide Organization, Communication and Acceptance to an aspiring young man or woman, it is the worst calamity for society, cultures and nation. Sadly, this calamity is beginning to strike many young ones. Let’s us all do our bits to stop that to happen.
Moreover, there is this need to accept that there is the core trouble with all enterprises of life….
There can never be singular, simple aspect of anything. Things always are multidimensional and it takes a convergence of all these dimensions at one point of time to create a utility. This convergence is also not static, rather always shifting… That convergence is ‘success’ and that is why, most successes are mostly situational and effervescent and ephemeral…
Everyone has a piece of land full of diamonds, however, only that person shall begin to dig for it, who has the knowledge that diamonds are precious. Otherwise, it is just a stone. If a farmer has this land who does not know the worth of diamonds and is obsessed with fertility of his soil for cultivation, shall throw them away along with other pebbles and weeds.
Other farmer may have the knowledge of the worth of diamonds but he may not have the knowledge that in nature, diamonds do not come as polished and shining. He shall dig and even find them but still throw them away taking them as any other useless stone.
Another farmer may be knowledgeable of all these; still, he may not have the patience to dig deep and discern between real diamond and loads of other stones that may come up during digging. He may stop digging mid-way.
In digging wisdom, we all face such troubles. It takes multidimensional elements of preparations and readiness, all being in one person at some point of time, for the treasure of diamonds to become available. Holism is priceless possession...
What is of utility and benefit to someone in his or her life, is independent of the real and true worth they have. It is you and me who create worth in anything. Then we pursue it and devote our lives in having them and that too in plenty. A diamond does not have any worth on its own. It has worth for humans. A monkey shall find it, taste it and then throw it away. For the monkey, an apple is million times more worthy and precious that this hard, tasteless stone.
This means, our lives, whatever we all do with our lives and what we chase life-long, have worth and value only to the extent, we assign them and believe in it? Not even that. Most people do not even assign their own value and worth to what they do and achieve in life. The contemporary culture, they are born in and brought up, usually decides the benchmarks of utility and worth for all pursuits of their lives.
The worth of diamond is a cultural benchmark of utility. In the culture of all other living species of Earth, other than human, it is almost worthless like any other stone. There is a worldview of all other species, other than humans, where value and utility of all pursuits by all members of the species are decided by their natural instincts, which ensures their survival.
In humans, the instincts are also there and they decide utility and value of human pursuits too. However, most of human pursuits are decided by popular cultural benchmarks of utility and worth, which humans themselves create and keep changing.
What is ever lasting, more singularly permanent is the conscious realization that anything can have utility and worth, if we very consciously assign them to it. It is always better that we assign value and worth to all those intangibles of life-living experiences, which are immortal and constant. Love, compassion, holism, innocence, assimilation et al are the intangibles, which add value and worth to anything we do and have.
So, these are our real diamonds, which we do not have to even dig, it is freely available to us and that is why, we squander them for such petty things like money, pride, possessions, power and position. Young ones must internalize this worldview in their perceptions about success and self-worth.
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