“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety” – Aesop
Bajaj, a motorcycle major in India is enjoying the great success with the launch of the new series of Avenger: a cruiser bike. I’m sure you have noticed the increase in its number on the roads, special credit to the promotion team for coming up with a great advertisement video. This advertisement video remained in with me for a while, I’m not sure how relevant it is for the bike, but it is very relevant for the current lifestyle of humanity. Do you realize that majority of the population are all participants of the world’s largest rat race? Trying to clinch a title that doesn’t profit one in any way, trying so hard to meet unrealistic targets and deadlines that some unidentified person sets, pushing oneself to accomplish in less interested areas. In the process children are losing their parents and vice versa, spouses are losing each other, families are breaking apart, friendships are dissolving quicker than one could imagine and eventually you are losing yourself.
Money, what worth is it if it’s butchering the most valuable things you have nurtured all your life? Fame, how useful is it if your children don’t know who you are? Titles, what value does it hold if you are becoming a visitor to you own family? If you thought it was okay to trade your family, relationship, values, and moral with money, fame, title, and position; you are wrong. On the happiness scale a daily wager’s graph is imore mpressive than that of a corporate professional’s. People living in shacks by the roadside are happier than most of the people who are living in high-rise apartments, posh villas and palatial houses. They know better about work-life balance than the apparent literates.
In 2007, one of my best friends was offered an expedient job at Google with a lavish pay scale. Life was more than settled for him with that irrefutable offer, but it was heart-breaking for every single person when he turned down the offer. I was equally upset and asked him why he turned down the offer and this is what he had to say, ‘Google didn’t offer a good remuneration for the work they wanted from me, they offered to pay for my gifts and talents, that’s why I turned down the offer’, ‘I’m not a product that is on sale. If Google (a stranger who cannot understand or use my gifts and talents to my full potential) is willing to invest in me, then how much more can I the possessor of these gifts and talents utilize them?’
He had a very humble beginning, a lot of people rebuked him for his decision and his idealistic approach, but now he is living a life that every employee of Google or any corporate giant would dream of. He owns a beautiful independent house away from the city, a latest top of the spec car, he is doing what he enjoys in his own office space at the ground floor of his house, he is spending enough and more time with his wife and two lovely daughters, as a family he is going on frequent vacations without even having to worry about deadlines and targets, and he loves being the perfect husband to his wife and the best dad for his daughters.
If you thought that this happened only the in movies, you’re wrong. You can do it too if you can identify your gifts and talents, explore the environment in which you can use them to your complete potential, and do what you enjoy doing. It will certainly not happen like the way it happens in the movies, everything has a humble beginning and takes time. If you are persistent, determined, purposeful and unwavering in your pursuit of that impeccable life, you will most certainly be successful. I want leave you pondering on this quote by Fred DeVito “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you”