Making The Right Choices
Now, before I begin elucidating more on the topic, the question that inadvertently pops out is can there be any such thing as right? Sure, we must have heard it multiple times in our lifetime in cases of people that there doesn’t exist a person who can be “right” and that we must be able to do are identify our choices and strive to make them as informed as possible. Well, those are big words now, aren’t they?
Sure, almost all of us are aware that eating organic vegetables are good for our health but the question is how many of us can afford it? Not many in a country like India I guess where around 2/3rds of the population earn their livelihood from agriculture. In this case perhaps knowing the fact that inorganic vegetables are detrimental to our health, we might not be able to opt for organic vegetables since they are pricey. But, in our lives could we sometimes make a choice that perhaps seems right to us?
Let’s talk about our professional lives for a while. How many times has it happened to us that we know that we deserve a better job and can very well understand that the person at the other end is asking us to compromise monetarily, yet we compromise. Not because we’d be dead without that job or die from hunger but we are scared that we might not get a better job in the future. Perhaps engaging in such endeavours and because of our monetary sacrifices we tend to lose other bigger opportunities that might come our way. Yes, as I say this I understand that sometimes people don’t really have a choice and they just have to bow down given the given circumstances, but most of the time our decisions are made out of fear and countless “What Ifs”.
You know what determination and the value of self worth feels like? Recall the protagonist Howard Hoark from Ayn Rand’s famous novel “The Fountainhead?” Roark was an established architect in the city of New York who literally had to take up work at a quarry so that he could make his ends meet. Also, this was because he had no other architectural work and would not budge an inch from the way he planned his architectural designs. Imagine the level of tenacity the guy had! When I’d read about him, every line would give me goosebumps. I’d think how could someone be so very dedicated to his career that he wouldn’t make any amends in his way of thinking?
Honestly, I read his story with a lot of apprehensions in mind and my fear would amplify each time, however, at the end of the novel it was shown that Roark was the one that created history, the one who is being mentioned even today. And I can guarantee that he got there because he made the right choices for himself.
If I have to talk about my life too, I’d say that more often than not I’d make some choices that are way below my standard. Frankly speaking, I have never considered my professional or academic accomplishments as anything phenomenal but when I’d make those choices that I perhaps shouldn’t have, time and again I’d feel like cursing myself. However, the mind choosing to act like a damsel in distress, chose to hold on, tone down myself and make compromises. Alas! You know what happens at the end?
The same terrible and below standards choices that you made leave you far behind, making you vulnerable and weak where just stand there meekly not knowing what just happened to you. The illogical side argues that perhaps this was a fault in you again you, probably shouldn’t have displayed your exposure to intellectuality. It’s here when the logical side pops up and says that had you actually listened to your intellectual side, probably you wouldn’t be in this situation.
And you are left with nothing but tears! Whom to blame now, but yourself? The same vulnerable self?
But you gotta buck up, dust yourself up and move forward. Only this time when you do march ahead, make sure that you set your standards straight, after all you owe yourself that much!
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