When Aarushi returned home a few days back, she had a bruise around her eye. It was frightening to imagine that someone had hit her in the eye at school. It was simply not possible for a school like hers... When we asked her about it, she explained that she fell down while running.
On further probing about who was monitoring their running, she revealed that all of them run after their school to the van to sit in the front seat (beside the driver bhaiya). So, when she was running that day, and trying to look back at how others were faring, she twisted her foot and fell.
It was a mountainwings moment for me (check out http://www.mountainwings.com to understand what a mountainwings moment means).
All of us do it the same way. Sitting in the front seat is no big deal, but children saw it an important achievement. It was nothing to compete about, but a competition somehow set in. From a larger perspective, all of us end up competing about so many things of absolutely no value / consequence in long-term. The interesting coincidence was that they were not fighting for the drivers seat, it is accepted to be someone else's responsibility, almost in the same way as most of us understand that we can't replace Him, the real driver of everything around us.
Whenever we notice ourselves being a part of competition - for promotions, position, responsibility, salary hikes, recognition etc. - let us just step back and see the importance of that front seat in the larger scheme of things.
The children sitting in the back are a group that enjoy through the way back home, the one in front seat sits alone. The one in the front gets a completely different view of the traffic, but that is simply other people also chasing one dream or another. The ones sitting in the back enjoy their time back home by building better relationships along the way. Everyone reaches home (the heavens, if I may call it), sooner or later, independent of where he/she sits in the van. Once home, parents hardly bother about where the child sat. The only concern is if they behaved responsibly wherever they enjoyed themselves. To the parents, children reaching home is the primary delight (and relief). I understand that for God too, our reaching to Him is of importance, than what position we sat at or what salary we earned... However, for him too, a responsible behavior, wherever we are placed, would be a key metric of measuring success.
Let us seriously consider if we can simplify our lives by doing away with the competition introduced by us in the scheme of things. I say, "by us", because competition or cooperation is our choice and our state of mind. We decide to cooperate, and the person who had initiated the competition will also mend his/her ways, sooner or later, or simply drift away - since we don't pose a challenge to compete against anyways :-)...
On a completely different axis, if we do wish to compete, let us not look back at our competition, lest we hurt ourselves.
On further probing about who was monitoring their running, she revealed that all of them run after their school to the van to sit in the front seat (beside the driver bhaiya). So, when she was running that day, and trying to look back at how others were faring, she twisted her foot and fell.
It was a mountainwings moment for me (check out http://www.mountainwings.com to understand what a mountainwings moment means).
All of us do it the same way. Sitting in the front seat is no big deal, but children saw it an important achievement. It was nothing to compete about, but a competition somehow set in. From a larger perspective, all of us end up competing about so many things of absolutely no value / consequence in long-term. The interesting coincidence was that they were not fighting for the drivers seat, it is accepted to be someone else's responsibility, almost in the same way as most of us understand that we can't replace Him, the real driver of everything around us.
Whenever we notice ourselves being a part of competition - for promotions, position, responsibility, salary hikes, recognition etc. - let us just step back and see the importance of that front seat in the larger scheme of things.
The children sitting in the back are a group that enjoy through the way back home, the one in front seat sits alone. The one in the front gets a completely different view of the traffic, but that is simply other people also chasing one dream or another. The ones sitting in the back enjoy their time back home by building better relationships along the way. Everyone reaches home (the heavens, if I may call it), sooner or later, independent of where he/she sits in the van. Once home, parents hardly bother about where the child sat. The only concern is if they behaved responsibly wherever they enjoyed themselves. To the parents, children reaching home is the primary delight (and relief). I understand that for God too, our reaching to Him is of importance, than what position we sat at or what salary we earned... However, for him too, a responsible behavior, wherever we are placed, would be a key metric of measuring success.
Let us seriously consider if we can simplify our lives by doing away with the competition introduced by us in the scheme of things. I say, "by us", because competition or cooperation is our choice and our state of mind. We decide to cooperate, and the person who had initiated the competition will also mend his/her ways, sooner or later, or simply drift away - since we don't pose a challenge to compete against anyways :-)...
On a completely different axis, if we do wish to compete, let us not look back at our competition, lest we hurt ourselves.
