A few days back, I observed some of the kids trying to earn some money by wiping the glasses of cars on the roads while the cars stopped at the traffic lights. Some ladies were also carrying babies in their laps and begging for money. This is one strata of the society that is somehow struggling for survival. There is another sector of society that is comfortable in mediocrity. That includes the people who are born rich and have a family business. The kids take over the family business from their parents without any new innovation. This also includes the people who spend their entire lives doing a routine job without much innovation. That also includes people who stay at home without any drive for excellence in any area of life. There is a third category of people who are always working hard for excellence in all walks of life. That may include scientists constantly trying the break the frontiers of present-day knowledge, doctors trying to find treatment for complicated diseases, spiritual teachers trying to understand the reality beyond the domain of comprehension, people making efforts to understand others and trying to make a difference in their lives.
Any of us could have been a "struggler". It's just a matter of chance that we were born in a family where our parents took care of our education and made us employable. I observed the kids on the street and noticed that "good education" grooms us in many different ways. Such as communication skills, presentation, logic, reason, history of humanity, understanding of our own bodies, and also the understanding of society. It's a long-term process, and it's very difficult to have a crash course on the same. Somebody can't produce a human baby in a month because that's a process that takes nine months. In fact, even among the children who are lucky enough to join the formal education process, some children miss the bus because of a variety of reasons such as diseases, lack of concentration in the classroom, problems at home, financial crisis, or lack of god teachers, and once they miss the bus, every next class becomes burdensome and slowly such students lose interest and become mediocre.
Mediocrity is the default. Unless we make efforts for excellence, we will naturally become mediocre. Unless we make efforts to stay fit, we will gain weight and become fat. Mediocrity is not restricted to education. It pervades across all the domains of life. Mediocrity exists in relationships. Relationships are one of the most robust tools to understand ourselves and the human psyche in general, and to connect to each other at the level of the soul. But for that to happen, we need to be brutally authentic. Unfortunately, relationships have become mediocre. We have forgotten to love. We are so self-obsessed that relationships have just become tools for grabbing. Where is the place for fear in relationships? How can one exploit the other in a relationship? That simply means we are playing some other game in the name of relationships. We need to introspect whether we have even a single relationship in which there is no pretension and we dare to stay naked.
In fact, leave aside relationships. Do we have even awareness of "who we are"? Most of the time, we are unable to understand ourselves. Our reactions are beyond our control as well as comprehension. It is because we do not want to work to understand ourselves. There are layers and layers of our own selves. Some conscious and some unconscious. We do not want to examine them and understand. That's a lot of work. We are happy with our mediocrity, which forces us to be inauthentic to ourselves. Since we do not understand ourselves, we remain inauthentic most time while interacting with others. We say something different than what we actually intend. We have a very low level of integrity. We change our views and opinions opportunistically.
The same mediocrity reflects in our pursuit of life. We never give it a serious thought. We accept whatever our society and parents tell us is the purpose of life. Have a job, earn money, marry, have two kids, socialize, and die. In fact, it is quite strange that we have the same dream for our kids as well. They should also "settle down" soon in their life. We do not reflect on the purpose of life because that needs effort. We would need to challenge what the majority thinks, we would have to challenge the social conventions, we would have to be "aware" in every moment to understand the "nature of reality". On the contrary, we are happy believing what the majority believes. That's quite comfortable. "Awareness" in every moment is difficult, and it's easy to be a couch potato watching Netflix mindlessly. It's easy to marry and have kids, and join the crowd. We join the race for money and power mindlessly and without ever examining what that money and power do to us and our lives.
"Awareness" demands effort. That's why "examination" is difficult. It is easy to "accept" or "reject" without "examination". That's why it's easy to accept that life means "X" or reject that life means "Y". It is easy to believe that I am "good," or somebody is "bad". It is easy to accept that God lives in heaven or to reject the same idea. Acceptance or rejection without examination is an act of laziness. It will only make us mediocre. Excellence requires "examination" with "awareness". It necessitates constant effort. The bigger the question is, the more effort is required to understand reality. There is no doubt that excellence has a cost; however, it is immensely rewarding as well. Mediocrity may seem attractive at first, but it becomes quite painful as we proceed. It is difficult to accept that inner hollowness. It fills us with fear and makes us feel insecure. That's why parents need to make kids aware of the cost of mediocrity, so they are prepared to put in the effort for excellence and live a meaningful life rather than a hollow life full of fear and insecurities.
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