Nothing surprises me anymore. Anything seems possible. The Good, the Bad or the Ugly. Any time. Anywhere. Any place. Justifications abound for everything that happens and for everything that does not. If man cannot find one, one just passes the buck to god.
I could shoot and kill and say that it was in self-defence. I would walk scot-free. Survival of the fittest. Hats off to Monsieur Darwin. If I die, shot by someone else, I would be blamed for not having tried to defend myself by shooting back in time. I simply did not know how to survive. My parents had not taught me this much-important art.
Everything that happens, they say, happens for a reason. And, they do what they want. They have their own reasons ready. There is no dearth of tactics which one may choose from: to defend oneself and justify one’s actions. One of them is just to say ‘Sorry,’ as if those five letters would change everything. Another would be to get into the advisory mode, after having yourself committed a wrong deed — the target for the advice being the person who you have hurt or whose prospects you may have damaged, wantonly or otherwise — or, perhaps, somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
They often say that one should look for opportunities in adversities. Works both ways, does it not? You damage, and then show that you are efficient at damage control and seek brownie points. At the same time, the damaged party is also expected to believe that the clouds passing over their head have silver linings. ‘If you cannot see them, put on your glasses, you damned fool. I can see them, silver orbs around those clouds. How blind can you get.’
Wonder if one could be taught Divine Law in our universities, in addition to Corporate Law, Environmental Law, International Law, Civil Law, Criminal Law, and the like. If anything is justifiable under such man-made laws, it is not surely the case in Divine Law?
You work hard and contribute happily — to the growth of your team, your workplace and your organisation. You do not believe in wasting time. Time is money and money makes the mare go round… and, that is the way to the top, to stability, to progress, to prosperity, to development.
You are aware of the free-riders, the smooth-talkers, the shirkers who look for other strategies, apart from hard work to stay in the reckoning. You still feel that your hard work and dedication will conquer all. But, they turn back and tell you: “You know, if only you had been seen often in these pubs and parties, and if only you could let your hair down and sip on beer (no fun in being a teetotaler, my friend), and learn how to do in Rome what the Romans do (Does not history tell us that the Roman Empire crumbled because of what the Romans kept on doing, or kept on refraining from doing?), you can scale great heights.”
Yes, my resume could include something about the number of parties I attended, number of people I petty-prattled with, number of beers I downed… that is what they are all looking for, to add to a so-called ‘great work atmosphere.’ The ones who like working hard need to step down to make those who do not, feel comfortable, and get kudos for doing so. In cricket, if you ask a specialist batsman to also be good at bowling, his batting will suffer. If you, likewise, ask a specialist bowler to brush up his willow-wielding skills, he may not have enough time to ensure that his bowling skills keep improving.
Get along, mingle, become like the others. Individuality is not what one seeks in today’s world. They just want you to blend in, to become like them. If you are a dog among wolves, you cannot bark. You should soon learn to cry like they do. It is a delicate situation — a make-or-break. Give up and reconcile and feel at ease, accepted, secure, even successful — though that would not be so, perhaps, in your opinion. Or, keep fighting, retaining your individuality, go on… It is a simple choice, you see.
It is simply a case of either struggling now and being satisfied in the future; or, yielding now for make-believe satisfaction and repenting at leisure, when the world awakes from its slumber and sings paeans to those who have endured and crossed that line between ‘goodness’ and ‘greatness’.
