3 (often overlooked) factors critical to your future
We live in a time where everything from banks, to technology companies, to FMCG products promises us a great future. We all desire a safe and happy future. However, desire alone isn't sufficient for the desired condition to become a reality. It takes knowledge and actions (stemming from knowledge) to achieve the future we dream about. Here are three factors critical to creating a peaceful and prosperous future. Ignoring them will only result in unpleasantness.
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Our choices
The notion, ‘Relax, nothing is under control’, is unquestioningly accepted by our society today. We seem to lack the ability to connect the seemingly random and unconnected dots (events) that make our reality. More often than not, we fail to see the big picture. The reason for this is our myopic ‘it's-all-about-me’ approach towards life. Seldom, do we realise that our choices, even the smallest and seemingly insignificant of them, matter in the larger scheme of things. It is a common misconception that our ability, skill, and talent are the sole deciding factors of our future. While this is true, it's only half true. The other half (the more significant half) that's critical for building the right (if it's right, it will be bright) future is the choices we make. Do we have the will to make the right choices to help build a good future – not just our own future, but the collective future? If our choices and actions (of the present) continue on the path of mindless competition, stress, and imbalanced equation with nature, tirelessly contributing to keep the chaotic reality of our times go unchecked, we can be sure of moving into the future with the same, or even worse, troubles and frustrations. If the future needs to be different, a course correction is needed in the present.
Our curiosity
How much we know of this world is the guiding compass that helps us navigate through life. The more we know, the more signs we will be able to see on our journey. We will be directed in the right way only through, study, our ability to ask the right questions, and research. What fuels our desire to study and research is curiosity. This is not limited just to our profession, career, and ambition, but an overall general, healthy curiosity to understand the workings of the world that goes beyond the confines of economic policies, politics, and profit and loss.
Our charity
The acutely unequal state of our world is not due to the unequal distribution of material wealth among people, but the unequal distribution of knowledge. The only way we can set this out-of-order reality in order is by freely sharing knowledge that we possess with others.
If you feed a man a fish, you may take care of his hunger for a day. But if you teach him how to fish, he may get greedy and catch more fish than it is his need (and right). True knowledge is not just about knowing how to fish, it is in knowing how much to fish. Sadly, it is this knowledge that we lack as a society. And this is the knowledge that needs to reach the people freely, and swiftly.
If we truly desire a great and wonderful future, we need to take control of our lives, our will, and our choices. And we need to understand that the quality of our individual future depends on the quality of the collective future.
