The race goes on and on and on

Don't rest on your laurels. Search for and welcome challenges in order to grow on both personal and social fronts

KEEP RIDING: Winning a race is not enough. The quest for success is a never-ending one. — Photo: AFP

This is a true story. Two decades ago, a clerk in a government office, used to reside on the outskirts of the city as he was unable to pay heavy rent. His journey to office took a minimum of an hour and his two children went to school in a rickshaw spending two hundred rupees per month. One of his friends, on his transfer offered his moped, which the clerk purchased with a hand loan. He saved the rickshaw expenditure by dropping his children at the school while going to office and paid the instalments taken for the vehicle loan.

If he had been happy with the newly found consolation, he would have lived in a self-created comfort zone as described by Sigmund Freud.
Freud's principles

Freud coined two psychoanalytical terms called pleasure principle and reality principle. The pleasure principle advocates deriving immediate happiness or avoiding immediate pain or both, at the cost of future bliss. Reality principle is postponing immediate gratification for future genuine comfort.

A person ceases to work at a stage where he thinks he is contented. But the reality is that he is not capable of advancing further and has created an artificial comfort zone. There is a thin line between satisfaction and contentment.

Suppose the lifetime desire of a person is to travel by aeroplane at least once. Due to his inability he cannot fulfil his desire. If he completely forgets the desire it is called contentment. Contentment is `happiness without any further desire'. Many people chase the desire but name their incapacity (or laziness) as contentment. One may ask: What is the alternative? One should locate his untapped resources and develop the physical or mental energies to satisfy all possible desires.

The chasing shark

The Japanese love fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan do not have many of them. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to return with their dead catch. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. However, the Japanese could taste the difference. So fishing companies installed large fish tanks in the boats and would stuff the live fish in them. They were alive but because they did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste and it was a big problem for the fishing companies. So how did they solve this problem?

They now add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state, because they are `challenged'.

The clerk in the earlier example, after purchasing the vehicle, found more leisure time in the morning and evening, as he could avoid the bus journey. With the money that he earlier used to pay for his children's travel, he rented a small room and started tutoring students. He found his hidden capacity as a tutor and soon became popular in the locality. At this stage he found that his revenue from two hours of coaching each day was equal to his eight-hours-a-day office salary. He resigned.

He is now a multimillionaire and owner of many prestigious educational institutes in Karnataka.

As soon as we reach our goals, such as starting a successful company, acquiring some assets, we loose our passion. We think that we don't need to challenge our life further and can relax. Instead of avoiding challenges, enjoy them. The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. You have fun. You are alive! If you have met your goals, set some bigger goals. Once you meet your personal or family needs, move onto goals for your group, society, even mankind. Don't sleep on success. Had Einstein or Edison taken rest after their first invention, we would have lagged scientifically.