Article
written By Sachin Thakur
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Every human being born under the Sun carries alongwith
him a dream of living a content and peaceful life, where there are no worries,
there is no one to bother, life passess on smoothly, there is security,
respect, authority, family, dreams are fulfilled and so on. We desire a life
which is picture perfect, we desire a life which is beautiful. BUT ….… in
reality do you think it is so. It is absolutely not, because the day we are
born, GOD gives us a set of responsibilities, duties, objectives, aims and a
long TO DO list. And trust me the list is pretty long. On the top of that we
get such a nice working ground to execute these all things, which is full of
all the possible obstructions, hurdles, ups & downs, changes, movements,
sorrow, failures and detachments. A lot of people among us are
able to cope up with all of these. They are able to manage their lives by
adopting themselves to the ever changing circumstances. But a majority of us
are unable to do so and the result,more than often, are drastic, which can
cause havoc in one’s life. A person can have a broken family, shattered dreams,
lost job, helplessness, stress e.t.c. As a result many a times one tries to
seek shelter in the form of alcohol or one may get into a deep state of
depression. Lack of interest in one’s life is another form of the above
mentioned results.
The end output of all of this is a degenerated and
mutated form of our beautiful human life. When I say Beautiful Human Life, I
mean it and I really mean it. “LIFE ACTUALLY IS MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN WE CAN
EVER IMAGINE”.
The only hitch is in discovering the beauty.
Before further reading, I want you to take a deep
breath, move backward on your chair shut your eyes and think why are you unable
to cope up with life. I want you to think and think really hard !
The reason is very simple. You are unable to change
yourself. You have put a barrier in front of you or rather I should say a
number of barriers in front of you. Yes, a number of barriers is the right
word, because changes are there in every sphere of life and you tend to
restrain yourself from changing according to changes.
Now instead of preaching and
giving you a lecture over changes, I would like to tell you a story. Everyone
of you who is reading this will have a different kind of opinion, but one thing
is for sure, it is going to be positive.
Here we go:
Once upon a time, there used
to be a maze of tunnels under the earth and two dragons used to live in it. The
name of first dragon was ZAP and the other OOF. They used to eat whatever they
used to get. There was nothing exciting happening . One day an ugly old man
told them that there was a huge store of chocolates hidden somewhere in the
maze and if they find it they will have to do nothing for the whole life and
they can enjoy their life like anything. They were full of energy and they
immediately decided to search for it. They wore their shoes, packed their bags
and immediately went on searching for the store of chocolates. They started
with a tunnel which was as dark as it can be and started running in it. They
did’nt have torches, but they were not afraid. They kept on running and running
and running. There were tunnels within the tunnels. For most of the times they
met the dead end of tunnels and all the times they came back to the earlier
tunnel and started running again. After running for a long time they came to a
big room, both of them got very happy and they immediately jumped into the
room, but to their disappointment the room was empty. They got disheartened,
but they started running again. They again met a number of dead ends, but every
time they turned back and started from the earlier point. Sometimes time the
tunnel was having a little light but most of the times, it was dark, when it
was dark they were a little bit of frightened but then they shove away their
fear and starts running again. They ran and ran and found a number of empty
stores, but they ran. Finally one day they saw a little bit of shine on the far
corner of the tunnel. They got excited, after all it was their ray of hope.
Inspite of being tired they ran towards that light with their full energy. As
they got near and near the light became brighter and brighter and when they
finally reached their, they saw a room full of chocolates. There were huge
heaps of chocolates. There were so many kinds of chocolates that nobody would
have ever seen. They immediately jumped on one of the huge heaps and started
devouring the chocolate. The ate and ate and ate and ate. Finally when they got
tired, they lied down and slept. The next day again they woke up and ate
chocolate and slept. In the evening they woke ate chocolate and slept. Now
everyday they used to do the same. They used to get up and eat and play and
sleep. Slowly and gradually, it became a routine. They used to get up eat and
play and sleep. Days were passing smoothly. They were so busy in their cool and
comfortable life that they did not notice what was happening around them. They
thought that the chocolate heaps were in abundance and they will last a life
time, but in reality no matter how much chocolate was their, it was in a
limited quantity. They ate and the heaps used to decrease in size, but they
were so involved that they did not pay attention to this. AND one fine day when
they reached the store as usual, but to their horror, there was no chocolate.
Whole of the chocolate was finished. For some time they were unable to react
and when they were they sat back and started crying. But now nothing could have
been done, the chocolate was gone. They wept and cried and shouted the whole
night. When they were tired they slept. Again in the morning they woke and
cried. But then ZAP sat in the corner and started thinking. He was sad too but
then he thought and thought. He thought of how to get back the chocolate.
Finally he decided to go again in the search of the chocolate. He tied his
shoes, packed his bag and went to OOF.
OOF was sitting in a corner. HE asked him to come along with him, but of no
use. OOF was too frightened. He did not have any courage to get up and enter in
the dark web of mazes of tunnels. So he sat back and cried on his lost fortune.
He cried and cried. But ZAP got up and started. Although he too was afraid
initially, but he gathered his courage and started. He ran and ran and ran.
He was afraid of the dark, but he ran. He passed to a number of
unending tunnels ending in the deadends, but he came back and tried again. He was
weak and when he was unable to run he walked. He walked and walked. He came
across a number of empty rooms and stores, but he tried. One day when he was on
the verge of loosing consciousness, he suddenly saw a room filled with all the
possible goodies, chocolates, sweets and things that you would not have heard
of. ZAP was as happy as he can be. After all
he has found his fortune again. But this time he knew that he has to
watch for the changes that are going to happen as even this fortune was
perishable and he may have to get up and run, but this time he was confident,
because he was prepared for it and by his ordeal has self actualized that he
has to enjoy his fortune, but while keeping his eyes opened to the changes that
are happening around him.
Analysis:
After reading this story, I
am sure that everyone of you must be having a different set of opinions. SO,
here is my analysis.
ZAP and OOF are two different
people representing us, who are having two different mindsets, that is positive
and negative. The old man depicted in the story is our desire, need, want,
greed & necessity. It is the one who forces or motivates us to have
something better and in order to have it we put in our efforts, just like ZAP
and OOF put in their efforts by starting their search for the store of
chocolates. The store of chocolates is our aim or objective or goal or maybe
greed. It is the point that we all want to achieve in our life. The maze is
representing the hurdles and obstacles that we face in achieving our aim. The dark
tunnels are the times when we are demotivated and we feel hopeless. The
deadends are our failures and the action of coming back and go into another
tunnel is our will to rise even after facing failures. Actually we all are able
to do this. Through out our lives, we try and try and try. We fail we rise and we try again. We are so deeply engrossed
in our process of achieving our goal that we forget everything and we keep on
trying again and ultimately we achieve our aim, that is the store of
chocolates. But the biggest mistake that everyone of us does is to get so
deeply involved in enjoying our hard earned chocolates that we forget about
what is happening around us. We feel that nobody can snatch away the chocolates
from us. But the reality is absolutely different. Circumstances changes and
they keep on changing even after we have achieved our target. If we donot keep
our eyes open to the changes that are happening around us, we are doomed like
OOF, because it may be possible that one fine day our position is snatched from
us, we may feel that this has happened suddenly, but it is not so. The process
would have started longtime back, it is only you who would not have noticed it.
But if in case you face such a situation, be ready for the change. Just like ZAP
tie up your shoes and start running for another aim. One change does not mean
that you are useless, it just means that the need of the present situation has
changed.
You might have reached to
seat of a CEO after a number of trials, failure and attempts and once you reach
there you start enjoying your success, but the circumstances may change and you
may be required to leave the position. In such a case if you keep your eyes
open to the changes going around you, you will be able to make a swift move and
find yourself a better opportunity like ZAP, but if you are not vigilant, you
may be totally devastated like OOF. But your courage and your will to survive
can certainly enable you to survive the storm.
I still remember a friend of mine who used to work for a big
multinational organization. He was working as the head of the division. We had
an age difference, as he was much elder to me, but inspite of that we were very
good friends. He had attained his position by his hard work and dedication. He
started off as a software development trainee and within a short span of 5
years he reached the position of division head, but he really deserved that
because he had slogged day and night to achieve that. He had properly utilized his
talent and his life was very very cool. He was drawing a nice salary, but one
fine day he went to attend monthly meeting and there he came to know that he
had to leave his job, because due to certain undisclousable reasons the
division was getting shutdown. He had to leave. We met in the evening and when
he told me this I was amazed because inspite of loosing his job he was very
cool, whereas I expected him to be highly depressed. When I asked him, he told
me that although his position was very strong there and he was enjoying it very
well , but inspite of that he had never shut down his eyes. He was very well vigilant
and due to this he had a feeling that this is going to happen, therefore he had
already made arrangements for another job and due to his past performance and
caliber, he had a couple of offers in hand. In fact he had to choose the
company to work with.
Now even in his case it was
not his fault, he was not having a lack of caliber and he was also not underperforming, but due to circumstances he
had to loose it but he still survived, but WHY? The answer is very simple, he
was observing the changes going and
therefore he had already made arrangements to survive and everyone of us
reading this can do the same.
Always remember!
“CHANGES ARE INEVITABLE, THEY
HAVE HAPPENED, THEY ARE HAPPENING AND THEY WILL HAPPEN, THE ONLY THING REQUIRED
IS TO KEEP YOUR EYES OPENED TO THEM.”
“ENJOY YOUR SUCCESS, BUT WITH
OPEN EYES.”
“EVEN IF YOUR EYES WERE SHUT
WHEN THE CHANGES HAPPENED, ATLEAST NOW BE READY WITH AN ALTERNATE PLAN OF
SURVIVAL”
“YOU LOSE YOUR HEART, YOU
LOSE EVERYTHING, YOU GAIN COURAGE YOU GAIN EVERYTHING”
Article written By Sachin
Thakur
Please e-mail me your
comments or queries on