Saturday 2 January 2016

Connecting vs Consuming

     Penning down after a while - well definitely not one of those resolutions that mark the beginning of the year. But some interesting stuff and thoughts of late that is kind of helping me rethink how things can be perceived. We come across many situations and people in different contexts and I have observed there is a slight sense of the self-gain attitude that is evident in these interactions. Well, that is common, I think about it too. But the extent to which it may occupy the table is key - a little is fine, but too much is unhealthy.
      At least, I have grown up hearing and preparing for the 'competitive world' and I am sure that would have been the case and is still is for many. And with the global integration and countries becoming more easily accessible, the word is taking dominance. I have heard mentions about healthy competition. Well in my view and given the current world's state, competition in itself is unhealthy. Leave aside appending a healthy adjective to it. In every sphere, be it politics, education, art, science, law, industry there is competition among parties, students, economies, countries, professionals and many more. It is apparently a magic word to get the best out of everyone at the expense of keeping many things at stake, which is often ignored.
 
      Well think about it - nations competing, parties competing, students competing, professionals competing - for what? What is the main goal in life for everyone? - to make it more nicer, happier and healthier, isn't it? Competition will lead to success and success in a field leads to success in life? If you think it will - then it probably will, but not what I would call sustainable success. 
     I often observe these days, that people are taking keen interest in nation building topics and the term - 'greater good' happens to be recurring in many discussions. While everyone wants to contribute to greater good, they think, that would be at the expense of foregoing personal benefits. That is exactly where we have to bring in change. Greater good is definitely going to contribute to sustainable success, especially in a world where resources are diminishing and demand is ascending. Think about it - a first rank holder in school competing with the second ranker vs both of them collaborating to come up with the next big innovation that would fuel the country's growth. Now blow it up at every level in the society. Rings a positive movement isn't it? It does, at least for me. 
      Every country, organization, person in the world wants to improve living conditions, improve human society, solve world's major problems in their own capacities. And prosopopoeia conveys that to achieve this think about 'Connecting' with any entity possible rather than 'Consuming' things yourself for self-good.
Happy new year. Let 2016 add new perspectives to your thinking and mine as well! :)

3 comments:

  1. Great ideas put forth as usual! One area where healthy competition definitely works is UNV online volunteering. The participants are all volunteers so there is no selfish monetary gain. In addition, UNV awards are announced on an annual basis to a team and not a person, thus encouraging healthy competition between groups and nil competition in a group. However, it is difficult to perceive such a healthy scenario, especially where gains (monetary mostly) are expected. Hopefully readers get inspired by this write-up.

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    1. Pavvi - Thanks for your comment. Agree with you that, when participation is voluntary, healthy competition results in increased productivity. But the question remains - are people only looking at financial benefits or non-financial benefits as well.

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  2. That's some lovely thoughts you have there! if only more people would get inspired by the idea of a Team... It really does feel great to be a part of one :)

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