Achievement Vs Experience

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Written on Thursday, March 29, 2007 by Rohan Koshy


Reading a book opens your mind. Since each book is a reflection of the thoughts of the author each book represents a window into the mind of a great person.

I'm working at my first job and and on the bad days you start to wonder why you're doing it. This is where the conflict between experience and achievement comes in.
As students we all want to achieve great things. We hold the belief that the ideas we are having are the ones that will change the world. Having read about great thinkers and visionaries reinforces that belief. When you get to working you start to realise that the time you spend away from work is very important i.e the your personal life.

This usually is the precursor to the thoughts that are the reason for this post. In the age of hyper achievement how much do you want to achieve and how much do you want to experience in life. Now in no way am i saying you can't have both at the same time but these two are usually at least semi-exclusive. I realise that judging by achievement makes the world a not so happy place. We love the Bill gates and the Micheal Jordans but we also adore those that spend their life travelling and seeing the world. You love it when you win on your own strength but you also love it when you just sit on the sidelines and shout yourself to a sore throat supporting your favourite team.

Living away from home and away from friends and family allows for a "sunlight through a lens" type focus towards your work but doesn't allow you to experience life the way you might otherwise. These of course are thoughts that are fleeting yet each time they leave a small footprint in your head. These footprints get deeper with each "thought instance" until they have a constant presence of your mind. Of course I'm presenting only the negatives but not the the numerous positives like personal growth, new friends and experiencing a cultural richness that is different from your own

The last paragraph was digressing from the topic i realise but it was a practical example of Achievement V Experience. i guess if i can hazard an answer it would be that you have to know yourself well enough to know what trade off your willing to give. In the end it's all about your happiness. One of my roommates has very little desire to spend his life in high pressure jobs (even if they pay a lot). While some time ago, i would have perceived this lack of ambition as disgusting , now I'm at peace with it. He's happy and maybe that's all that matters. He'd rather experience the bliss of a happy family life with holidays and time spent travelling rather then spend nights awake achieving and earning. And i don't blame him.
So make up your mind as to what brings you happiness because not all of us will change the world.

So you can be smart as hell or just stick your tongue out at the whole seriousness of life

The loss of innocence

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Written on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 by Rohan Koshy


Don't we just wish people were more innocent. Isn't it always running in our heads that everyone seems to have an agenda nowadays

When we were growing up i'm sure we wondered how older people could get so cold and apatheic towards things
I'm starting to realise that maybe it's neccesary.
I know a person that's so pure of heart that in this day and age it's unbeliavable.
The genuineness of that person really made me wonder how hard and apathetic i had become. No malice, no underlying agenda, no fake politeness
Just genuineness through and through. This person really has a heart of gold.
"The physical form of gandhigiri i used to tease" :p

Yet the world insists on teaching terrible lessons to them.
My friend's life was set and happily chugging along till once again life took one hell of a wrong turn
If you can't trust the one you love the most then who's left to trust? Fair weather love is what i'll term it now
When things get tough why do they dissapear? Why? I cannot bear to see people throw away the good things in life just because life starts to get tough
When life gets tough they JUST let go? Fight tooth and nail dammit!

Honestly i've never felt so frustrated in a long time. When a person so genuine and so nice gets dealt cards like this i start to wonder how much innocence you can really have
I believe life will teach you hard lessons over and over again until you get frustrated and do something i.e. Change
But this time i really felt it shouldn't happen. After a major tragedy in the past my friend didn't deserve this.
Why be innocent and naive and nice when even if you are you going to get screwed anyways.
Still my friend remains genuine and nice and caring. Unbelieavable
I get these forwards which say that you oughta love like you've never been hurt. I believe in that honestly because recently i've seen relationships break beacause one person in the relationship gave less than 100% in the fear that they may get hurt.
Less than 100% is not near even close enough. But now i just don't know. My friend gives a 110% and gets hurt so bad that i think even i would find it near impossible to recover.
Maybe we shouldn't be so innocent. Maybe we should look out for ourselves, balls to the everyone else
Maybe.
God knows :-(

Connect The Dots

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Written on Monday, March 05, 2007 by Rohan Koshy


Destiny is a funny word.
Long ago i was completely into the concept. Everything is written in stone and there's nothing you can do but act out your role
Sometime ago the idea then started to become repulsive. WTF? Destiny can kiss my lovely behind (:P). My life and my skill and my talent and MY Destiny.
Recently a friend told me a theory of destiny as a way of keeping score.
This seems like the middle ground between the depressing "Your destiny is already written" and the "I live my own life, I'm the supreme being of the universe"
Basically it says where you are right now is what you get when you take your dreams and minus all the effort u've put in...If they're equal then you are living your dream
If you effort is less then some parts of your life fall out of the dream life circle. And if your effort is more than your dreams require them to be then you can't dream enough and that's extremely sad
As of now i believe that destiny is part of your life that you do not have complete control over. What i mean is that you cannot control your life fully. There are certain circumstances that affect your environment or were already part of your environment.
Of course i don't mean this in the depressing thought that some may perceive it
I say this because you can observe that not everybody is meant to be famous or meant to be beautiful or meant to be really smart
You cannot decide that by the end of your life you will have more money than bill gates. For that to happen requires a lot more than just hard work. It requires a bit of luck.
That doesn't mean luck is going to make you famous. You’re not going to get famous sitting on your behind and waiting for luck to smack you in the face.

Every generation has heroes; every generation has those who will be beautiful and those who will be super-rich. A part of that has to be because of the destiny that you can't control
As far as i think destiny writes itself in only a few select moments in your life and the rest are for making the journey happier and easier for you
The saying "When you pick up one end of the stick you also pick up the other" actually describes this closely
When you make a major decision in your life you write your own destiny
When you decide to take up a certain job over others you write your own destiny and then you also have to "pick up the other end of the stick" i.e. the consequences of your decision
Almost everyone has felt this at some point. When you've decided to end a relationship you've known that one decision can affect your life for a lot longer
I think that's why many people will say that you very rarely get second chances. The same situation can never arise again. If you've broken up and got back together things are never the same,(it may be better btw)
When have one shot, you have to take it.


Funnily, we've arrived at the point where we've realized that we shape destiny through our own decisions (and NO other reason) and yet are not completely in control
The story of a journey is analogous to what I’ve said above. When u start a journey you make a decision to go left or right and that decision decides your destiny
You can of course choose which road you want to take, but once you have you can't decide how long the road may be ( more importantly.. you can't foresee the people who'll touch your life)
It’s like connecting dots. In the picture you can see the grand canvas but you have to connect all of the dots exactly to make reality and your dream the same. You're standing on a dot and you can decide which dot to connect to next but you have no control on maybe how long that line will be(or how colourful that line turns out)
Like in sports, some moments shape the rest of the game, so life is shaped in only a few select moments

Destiny is maybe too mysterious a word. I like the quote in the matrix reloaded that goes "Even the wisest cannot see the consequences of their choices". Maybe that's what destiny is. The ripple is created when you make a decision and the full consequences of the ripple can't be seen because you can't see the ocean in totality.
That's what probably makes it so much fun...You never know.
SO there's only one thing we can do. Do what makes you really happy and the consequences of the decisions towards that path are not up to you
We may become famous, or we may not, but all that we can do is that which makes us happy
So the advice that I’ve gotten is that when you find the one you love, hang on tooth and nail, when you find the work that you enjoy, do it.(not for free of course)

On a separate note this post allows me to salute all those people who have become successes without becoming famous. Maybe they didn't connect the dot which would have made them famous but nevertheless they are out there.
The technicians behind the movies, the pit crews in the races, the queer scientists who I’ll never know about, the trainers behind the athletes, the women that form the foundation of men's success(and vice-versa),
The programmers writing all that code that i may be the only one to find useful,
So for all those who work hard but don't get recognition that they may deserve, I salute you