Honestly speaking I always found an energy imbalanced scenario inside me. Maybe it was why I liked exploring new things, expecting to discover things that would balance the chaos inside me and take me to deep peace. I am struggling with that still, but at least I have settled into a subtle peace to some extent.
I know one day the COVID-19 lockdown will just remain in our memory just as the devastating earthquake of 2015. I don’t mean to ignore the crisis lockdown bestowed upon many of us, but trying to remain optimistic, I must admit the crisis surely brought few opportunities in my life. One such opportunity was the habit of reading books. I vividly remember reading dozens of novels, small and big, thick and thin, sometimes even two fat books in a week in my school days. How can I forget how impressed my English teacher used to be with me that one day he even gifted me a book of vocab. One fine memory it is!
Somebody said it correctly, when there is will, there is a way else there will be an excuse. So, my excuse to stop reading books was the backaching syllabus of biology that kept me totally busy in my high school and the life threatening pressure of Engineering during my bachelor’s. I rarely read a book or two during those six years after I completed my 10th standard.
Dragging myself back to the present, I feel really proud to have started maintaining the reading habit again. It is very true that you become what you feed in your mind. I read many books during this lockdown since the office hours could be flexibly adjusted according to my comfort zone. I can’t thank my dearest friend Sony Thakuri, who is an awesome designer for keeping me motivated and helping me develop this wonderful habit. She literally made me read at least 10 pages of any books I would love, to read everyday and in a month I was already starting to read books daily.
I took a taste of many business books in the past few months but one of them particularly changed my vision forever. In one conversation with one of my childhood besties, Neeru Gaire, we had this conversation about how perception is influenced by vision. I won’t be surprised if our perceptions do not match, I get it, it’s all about the vision, isn’t it? So, I am talking about the book Rich dad, Poor dad.
There are specifically two points I would like to address here regarding which I really had my vision changed because of this book. One is the education system which is targeted for mass production of excellent employees. The other is about handling finances and how savings are not for paying the bills for attracting more money. I will cover the latter part in my other writing.
Ever since I was a child, my mom prepared all three of us to be hardworking and studious students. We almost brought the topper’s awards home every year. We were “ideal” students who had a great future lying in front of us. My teachers told me I would be hired in a high paying job and make an excellent employee. Yes! An excellent employee. But the thing to note is why nobody told me you will be an excellent employer? Why did no teachers tell me that one day you will build a great business and be an intelligent boss? Why were we made to study mostly the redundant courses that even the teachers who were teaching us knew very well that they have almost zero contributions to shape our future?
I know you have plenty of good answers you can give me regarding the above queries. You might tell me schools prepared us to be researchers, scientists, and contribute to the community. You know what? This works out for a few minorities and what happens to the rest of the people? What happens to the bigger mass who are so badly boycotted just because they were not “academically sound” ? Why is “academic sufficiency” being treated as the parameter to decide where someone is smarter or not?
Sometimes I too feel some hidden power is controlling us and plotting to generate high-end employees so that they can ride their back and reach their own goal. Who knows if someone on high government authority and powerful business had our syllabus planned right from the scratch so that we would never question about anything? We would take it as the correct way of living life? Remember! None of the successful people have fallen for anything ordinary offered just by school syllabus. One beautiful example mentioned in the book is of a donkey and his master. The master lets his donkey eat carrots and the donkey happily pulls his master toward his journey. The donkey is under the temporary temptation of getting carrot and in the bigger picture is unable to see his own goals.
A hard working employee will remain a hard working employee forever. There’s no way he is climbing the ladder of getting to the top unless he himself realizes his worth one day. The book made me realize how working for others is never going to help me retire any sooner in my life. There needs to be another way around. I need to let this different prospective grow and nurture before I can start living on it. Because our thoughts have been manipulated since many generations and it’s not going to be any easier.