The journey is yours – The rest can chill

All our lives we keep trying hard to impress others!

As a child, we want to impress the teacher! The seed is sown.

Then you see your parents trying to impress their neighbours or relatives with the marks you achieved in the exams. You start getting biased in your mind.

As a teenager, you try hard to impress that crush of yours! 

You try to impress your friends with a new gift that you got – probably a cricket bat or a new cycle or a bike? You start getting status-biased.

Everything in your growing up years develops you towards a certain bias and a lot of it has to do with things over which you do not have control off.

Say, for example, your neighbouring friend rides a fancy bicycle and you yearn to have one. You rush to your parents and ask for a similar cycle or better. Now your parents can afford it or not is not in your control at all but you still yearn for it. If your parents give in to your demands they might end up telling you that get this percentage in the finals and I will get you that cycle. You get into competitive mode, comparison mode, and try to study hard and get good marks. You no longer study to learn something new – you study to get marks because the goal is to get a cycle. This is how biases keep building on our psyche and it keeps being with us most of our lives. 

Little by little we forget to live our lives – we start living others’ lives. But we forget that we are, what we are. We are all unique and we all have our specific journey. We try to become someone else by competing, by comparing, and eventually keep getting disappointed.

When I was in college, I saw all my friends having a bike of their own. I yearned for one but my parents couldn’t afford it. I was a pillion rider right through my college days. This disappointment finally led to me buying a bike right after I got my first job. The naivety in me led to my first dabbling with loans and I ended up paying 35% of my salary as an EMI for a bike. A few years later when I left Bangalore and came to Kolkata, I sold off that bike without batting an eyelid and didn’t feel sad at all. Today I don’t even think about that bike. Today I feel why did I spend so much on that bike when probably a second-hand vehicle would have done my job. It was my status bias – the only problem, I realised it many years later in my life. 

Throughout our lives, we keep trying to impress others (status bias) though the game is never about others. It’s always about you. When you buy that first bike, that first car, that first house – people will say congratulations but then they move on – nobody really cares about what you do and what you have, other than for that specific moment. Thereafter you are on your own – in most cases maintaining those assets and paying those EMIs. We bring the suffering to ourselves by trying to impress others and that’s one of the worst things to do in life. The biggest problem – we mostly realise this pretty late in life, at least that’s been the case with me.

I have a friend who is a good painter. A good artist. Art was his favourite subject. But painting doesn’t make a great career – that’s what he heard at home and he was literally forced to take up a professional degree. He adjusted to this new environment! 

We all do – we eventually adjust – that’s how humans have evolved – we learn to adjust – we learn to compromise – we learn to keep our emotions in check. 

Eventually, he became a professional, turned himself into an entrepreneur but when I go to his house, I see the canvasses in his room and I realised that he paints at night when the world sleeps. It’s great of him that he has kept his inner passion alive but he lost many years in between running after a degree which right now frankly doesn’t matter. That degree is just his social symbol. As I said a status symbol. We are all status-biased right from our childhood days!

When we enter the 40s we realise our mistake of the 20s but the years lost can’t be recovered. So the next generation should learn from our mistakes and do what they love to do. Don’t work just because others are doing it – don’t do something because your relatives are telling you to do it. I tell my son that spend time and think about what you love to do and then start learning and improving those skills. It could be anything. It could be cooking (which he loves to do) – just try to be the best at it. It could be designing (he is learning the skills online now that ICSE exams are cancelled). Just focus and try to excel in the field of your choice.

Recently I sent the below note to my son and asked him to take a printout and keep it handy so that he can revisit whenever he feels he is going astray.

“When you’re young, you have time. You have health, but you have no money. When you’re middle-aged, you have money and you have health, but you have no time. When you’re old, you have money and you have time, but you have no health.” 

Bottom line: Get wealthy at a young age. Invest your time in garnering special knowledge and then monetise it. Invest in equities. In 15 years, you can be independent!

Here independence means financial independence. You will no longer work for money – you will work to make yourself happy. Only when you work with happiness – which only comes when you have a peaceful mind – you will get to reach your purpose in life. 

Here is a small trick which you can try out!

Ask this question to your own self:

If you are 30 years old – What’s the best advice you will give your 22-year-old self?

At any age just go back 8-10 years and answer the above question and write down the answers!

You are now thinking in hindsight but you will see the mistakes you did in the last decade and work on the issues to improve your next decade.

I am sure when you truthfully answer it, you will know that life is all about you – it’s your life – you are the hero – others are supporting actors in the play. 

So don’t waste time getting validation from others for your activities! Don’t spend time thinking about what others will think about you. Don’t spend time leading others’ lives! Go ahead and make a better life for yourself. 

Are you doing it? If not, what’s stopping you?

PS. Babumoshai Zindagi Badi Honi Chahiye, Lambi Nehi!

Share this...

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin