Do we all live a life of compromises? The most probable answer would be yes. Almost all of us live with one or the other compromise. Probably, there are two fundamental reasons for the compromises. The first is the worldly cause. We have thousands of desires, and we are unable to fulfill those desires because of circumstances, or lack of resources, or conflicts among the desires. For example, somebody may have the desire to go abroad, but he may decide not to do the same to save money for the education of the kids. Somebody may have the desire to marry a friend, however, may not do so because the parents are not agreeing to the same.
Probably, consciously or unconsciously, we set an order of different desires within our brains. We live a life driven by higher-order priority compromising the lower-order priority. For example in the case of compromise on the desire to go abroad, the desire to get the kids educated is a higher-order priority, and in the second example, approval of parents is a higher-order priority. Similarly, we keep making choices. Most of the time, we choose our fear to courage. For example, when it comes to career choices, we make sub-standard choices due to our fear of failure. Similarly, many a time, we find social rituals and customs quite meaningless but we keep following them due to the fear of being criticized. Thus we choose validation over truthfulness. Probably any and every compromise is a choice, when we look at a deeper level. We just give it the name of a compromise.
The second cause of compromise is a lack of awareness. We live a compromised life because we are not aware of the consequences of these compromises. Further, we are not aware of the infinite possibilities of human life, we are missing. Thus we live a compromised life, even without being aware of the compromises we have made. For example, most people settle for a routine life of 10 to 6 jobs and taking care of families without ever contemplating the possibilities beyond the routine life. We sometimes see a few individuals breaking the barrier and leading a very fulfilled life but then the fear of the unknown takes over and we make a compromise believing that such life is not for us and start justifying our decisions to remain narrow and limited by attributing the same to different circumstances. Even in such situations, we have chosen our comforts and fears over the possibilities of exploration.
Human beings are a product of our choices. We live life depending upon the exercise of our choices. We always have two choices in life. One is the easy path and the other is the difficult path. The easy path is the path of comfort and pleasure. That makes us comfortable but deprives us of a fulfilling life. The difficult path initially looks tough but as we move along the path, we feel fulfilled. Most students choose fun and entertainment with their friends to the hard work during their college days and that is the reason why the hardworkers outshine them. Similarly, most people, after getting a job and family, choose a like of comfort and fun.
The path of spirituality is full of fears of the unknown. It's not an easy path. It requires us to challenge everything. That is why most of the people choose the easy path and do not dare to take on their fears. That is why most of us live a life of compromise, choosing our comforts and fears as against a life of exploration and creation. That is why as we grow old, life becomes more and more mundane and meaningless and we need external stimulants in the form of liquor and entertainment to keep us happy. We end up wasting precious human life in routine. However, there are always a few who choose the difficult path and set an example for others to follow. These people like Buddha, Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstien, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Socrates, etc keep inspiring the generations to come.
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