BEING IMPRACTICAL-1

BEING IMPRACTICAL-1

The whole world will tell you “Be practical, use your common sense. Do that which is easy, convenient, which fits in with society’s values. Don’t make life more difficult for yourself than it already is”. While this seems to be sound advice, it is advice that comes from the mind, and not from the heart.

Recently, I met a couple whose son wanted to be a doctor. But the parents, realizing that it takes many years to become a doctor and to settle down in life, talked the child out of his ambition. They forced him to take up a course which would finish in a few years and where he could be employed and earning in a very short time. The child was adamant, but eventually had to give up his dreams and had to give in to parental pressure. The parents were very happy. They had enforced a ‘practical’ decision on the child. This set me thinking “What if every parent thought this way, and prevented his son or daughter from taking up the study of medicine? What would happen to the future of medicine and hence, to the future of the common man, ten, twenty or thirty years from now? Where would we find a good doctor when we fall sick?

Many people would wholeheartedly agree with the decision of the parents to push their child into a less competitive easy life. After all, one has to think practically and make one’s life easy. But what about the ambitions and the dreams of the child? These are dismissed as not being feasible or practical. They are effectively thrown into the dustbin, for dreams and ambitions often have no place in the real world. All practical decisions in life are taken with our cunning and planning mind. The heart is never practical, the heart is a romantic, and the heart is a dreamer. But with our minds, we override the heart, both ours and of those who are dependent on us, killing many a dream in the process.

Om Namah Shivay