This post is written by Abhishek Tripathy, my batch-mate at NUJS, who gloriously cracked UPSC in 2015. This was published in 2013 in A First Taste of Law originally.
The Rat Race:
We have long since stopped being humans, it seems.
The purpose of education is to equip us with options. As I look at it, the idea of “knowledge empowers” is one of liberation from the moribund trail of stereotypes: study, study hard and well, get a job, marry, have kids, grow old, and well, die.
Yet, for the most part of our lives, most of us, stick to the script. As much as we can, as well as we can. But why does life have to be so predictable always?
We try to outrun one another in the professional world, and prove a point. We forget that at the end of the day, we are all (those of us who are in the fray, that is) a part of a grand rat-race. We endeavour big, set our aims very high: social status, money, car, property and the like paraphernalia of ‘success’, as is conventionally perceived. But does it not come at a cost to the other aspects of our lives?
A human personality is a sum total of many parts: artistic, academic, analytical and social. In trying to regiment our very existence into neatly pre-determined cubicles, why do we try to put to an end the other aspects of our being? Our work is one of the many things about our lives. But to most it is the only thing worth living for! Proud workaholics! eh!!
We are often afraid to chart our own course. It’s safe to follow a preset course. Adventure is best had in the movies and books. Life and adventure, if one had a choice to exercise, are antithetical to each other. Why do we fear to tread the course of our dreams? Why does all our thought have to stop at the doorstep of apprehended failures? The fear of the consequences overrides our every other thought. It strangulates our deep seated aspirations, our passions and our cherished dreams.
All courage begins with the sincere desire to pursue our goals, irrespective of the consequences. No courage is bigger than the courage to stand by one’s ideas. No move is bolder than to ceaselessly strive towards fulfilling our dreams. What it takes to be deaf to societal and peer pressure and pursue our objectives with boundless energy and enthusiasm is courage. But then that is a precious commodity which most lack! But, hold-on: a rat-race is hardly ever about appreciating the need to possess it in the first place! Its about out-running the other rats, right?! All that matters is the nibble at the end of the run.
Someone had told me once, that the el-dorado that we seek is within us. If only we are ready to embrace it: fully and unconditionally, that is.
