A Perfect Man
Let me begin by asking you a very simple question – do you believe that you have a perfect life? Are you satisfied and happy with what you are and what you have? Perhaps very few may answer with “yes” and may not be able describe what is the “perfect life”. What is the “perfect person” and what is the “perfect achievement”. On the contrary, those who say “no” will give many reasons to describe about their imperfections.
There is an interesting story about a so called perfect man, who calculated his life from the present to future and accordingly made his preparation for life meticulously. He prepared for a life span that would certainly end at maximum of his 90th year. Accordingly, he spent every penny earned and lived lavishly. He also started his blissful life after his retirement as everything seemed perfectly happening as per his plan. Eventually he got to his 90th as planned. At the end of it, everybody expected his end would come in a great style perfectly. As expectations grew for his grand death, the gentleman himself was counting and counting, and to his disbelief and to his dismay, the much anticipated event of death did not come!He was perplexed and went into a state of shock and void, when he saw that the stone which he threw up expecting it to travel certain distance and fall to the ground on time, did not happen!
Your Journey Towards Improvements
Such is the truth of life. Walking along towards the horizon, you find that the horizon has actually moved away. Every time when you think that you have reached the last one, but that one is never the final one. You continue walking, discovering new and new horizons. The theory of evolution, which we believe is the fundamental theory of life implies that everything in the universe is still evolving, and hence it is imperfect which is why there is always a big room for improvement.
Therefore, life must be ever changing and be ever dynamic – a journey towards improvement. This leads to another important fact of life, that is: life is limited by time, space and circumstances, and therefore though life is short but it is precious and it is not repeatable. Our past and present is what we have, and our future is unknown. Till this moment what has happened is our past and probably we did not have control over certain factors, because of lack of awareness, actions, and surroundings where as all our achievements till now could be assigned to certain facts, circumstances and actions that we knew, we controlled, and we did.
The Purpose In Life
Let us ponder about our “now” – the present. The present is the most precious moment in our life because it is at hand now, and we can in-fact define our future to a great extent by our present thought and action which is also described as developing a purpose and action plan with time frame.
Let us start with defining the purpose – suppose your completion of the Masters’ studies with distinction is your purpose. Where do you want to do it? May be in Oxford or Yale? This is your location or the space; and each space or location offers you many beautiful amenities, surroundings, scholarships, comforts, academic facilities etc; this is your circumstances. You will be living in the place of choice for three to four years, and that’s your time frame. You’ll be planning all your actions from the day one to the last day in order to achieve your purpose within the context – that is 3 to 4 years time frame, in a location called Oxford, and in given circumstances which also includes your family’s involvement, the teachers, the fellow students with whom you’ll interact regularly etc. besides all physical support systems.
Everybody has to have or needs to develop a purpose in life, because this limited life also offers many opportunities to live it fruitfully with meaning and purpose. You can, with all your consciousness, set goals both in short and long terms, which have to be measured by a certain yard sticks like – whether they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time bound which we call SMART goal setting. Accordingly you’ll also develop your action plans, strategies like cooperation, collaboration, and so on. Once you start acting upon your plan, you are in-fact staring to live a life according to your own defined path, and you become master of your own path, master of your own action, master of your own goal or destiny.
When you live your life, you live every moment of your life, which probably includes moments of joys, sorrows, pains and pleasures, happiness and sadness, sense of loving and being loved. Your moments are filled with ups and downs, glories and disgrace, sense of victory and sense of defeat. All these are part and parcel of life and they spice of your life,so that you enjoy your life. Therefore it is said there is no sense of gain if you do not have a sense of pain. All these are indicative of momentary and transient state of mind. And they always make you feel inadequate and imperfect. At the same time they all push you to try, strive, look for, seek, and drive you into a state of challenging of the present.
Becoming Gradually More ”You”!
Who should be your idol in life? Who should you emulate? Look at a child, a toddler who keeps on trying to stand up in spite of repeated falls. Whom does he follow? Perhaps he follows his own instincts and his own inner urge rather than imitating anybody. When you grow up, your mental, physical, spiritual and intellectual growth is mostly in proportion to your capabilities, in-born qualities, your circumstances and the people surrounding you.
There is no ready-made role model for any individual to emulate in totality and become a carbon copy of the role model. In essence each of us are unique and different in spite of many other similarities. You will always find yourself to compete with your present, fight against your inadequacies, struggle to overcome your limitations, and become as much capable, efficient, and strong a person as possible by competing with yourself, not with others. Because, if you imitate others, you are not doing anything extra or different than what a monkey does. It is also said that those who follow others’ foot-step leave no imprint of their own.
The beauty of life lies in becoming more and more “you”, with all your imperfections and short-comings. The bottom line of the discourse is life needs to be imperfect because it is evolving and there is always a big room for a greater attainment.
In essence, life is teaching us the five important lessons:
- Never compare yourself with others because you are incomparable;
- You should never be a blind imitator because you can never enjoy borrowed life;
- Compete with yourself so that you will be competent;
- Live your own life and be yourself, so that you will be really happy;
- Express yourself and give a dynamism to all your talents and potentialities, so that your life becomes richer and fuller.
Express Yourself! Be Yourself! Enjoy your life!
