How often do we see parents taunting their children because
their son or daughter could not achieve what their neighbour Mr. Sharma’s or
Mr. Goyal’s son has done! Sometimes we get to see this onscreen, sometimes at
our own places or at some friend’s place. Those who have witnessed it
personally can tell how bad is the feeling, while the lucky ones who never had
to face it can just guess. Such is the felling that the parents whom we have
respected and adored like God also appear in grey shade to us. No doubt all
these comparisons are intended at our growth in life but there are better ways
to encourage, aren’t there? Now let’s take another example. How often it
happens that we see a very close friend of ours performing exceedingly well in
his life, surpassing the entire criteria to be tagged as successful! No doubt
how good we are as a friend; there were times when we felt ‘down and out’
seeing our friends’ progress. No surprises here. Such is the human tendency! But
in both the cases mentioned above, we consider the success to be a relative
phenomenon. We measure the level of our success against that of our friends,
our neighbours and relatives. And this is where we underestimate our potential.
Each one of us is born with different level of capabilities, different talents
and different strengths. Competing with others certainly forces us to target
something whose level is set by someone else. For example, if some friend of
yours is all set to make it to the any of the top 5 B-schools of Asia, there is
a possibility that competing against him can eclipse your vision and thus you
might miss the chance of making it to top 5 B-Schools of World. Not only can
this, competing with others can force us to go after something which we are not
good at. If Harsha Bhogle had not identified his true potential as a cricket
presenter, he may not have achieved what he did and could have ended as a
manager after passing out from IIM-A. Today these managers call him for
motivational speeches for their employees. There are numerous such examples to
sight. Success is always meant to be an absolute phenomenon. If we have to
compete with someone, it has to be ‘us’ only. Because nobody, I repeat ‘nobody’
in this world can identify and measure our true potential more accurately than
ourselves. This way we will not only be doing justice to our capabilities but
also be free from feelings like jealousy and inferiority. Life will be a
celebration. We will be able to celebrate the success of our friends in a
better way and lead to a more meaningful life. Afterall life is not meant to be
a “भेड़ चाल“.
Is it?
