I love observing people from a distance. I do it all the time, almost everywhere. Over time, I noticed something peculiar about a lot of people around me. A principle they subconsciously follow - "Finish First or Die!".
Take a drive on Indian roads and all you see is people desperately overtaking each other like their lives depend on it. Sadly they often risk losing their lives doing this.
Stand in a queue at a railway station and you will see people pushing and shoving at you with no respect for personal space. Not only are they ready to grab an opportunity to jump the line, they live in fear of somebody else doing the same to them.
Gas Stations, Post offices, Banks, Airplanes, heck anywhere, same story. Mr. B can't bear to wait behind A. Instead, B loves waiting next to A. When space clears and A is slow, B will jump at the chance and steal A's position. But the twist is, C, D, E and F are also impatient, so poor Mr. A finds himself pushed back of the line due to a second's hesitation.
There's no compassion, there's no consideration, there's no organization. Only chaos, greed and selfishness. The quest for being numero uno. Why is everything in life a race and where are we learning this concept? Of course, it's School!
Sadly, from a very young age, kids in India are taught to aim to be better than everybody else, not aim to be brilliant individually. Everybody from teachers, to relatives, to parents, to strangers tell us that in life, you've got to be ahead of everyone else.
There was this school bus with a motto proudly printed all over it and it said - "Strive to Surpass". Really? Strive to surpass? It sounds like, as long as you're ahead of the others, you're all good. They just want to keep you ahead of the race, but sadly, only one can finish first. The rest of the hundreds of students will have failed to live up to the motto of the school.
A sad incident that went viral across the world was in Bihar with parents risking their lives to scale the walls of a multi-storeyed school building passing notes through open windows to help their kids cheat and pass the exam. With such experiences, the kids get brain washed into a narrow minded perspective that this is how life is. It's a competition and it's about beating everyone else.
The kids never realize that outside of school, different people run at different speeds and the race of life is not a one-way race. There are millions of directions to choose from. Everybody runs a different race at a different speed. For a certain student, just passing is a major achievement, for another, 98% is not enough. Different goals altogether, yet judged by the same standards.
Kids may not realize this, but parents and schools need to. If the current system of striving to surpass continues, all we will be left with, are students standing in a single file who can recite the entire text book word-to-word but not know the meaning of any of it. I've already come across such people in my life. "This is how you solve it, I don't know why, but this is the right method" - a pretty common sentence you hear in schools and colleges.
Competition is good to an extent as it brings out the best in you. But putting competition ahead of the final goal is going a bit too far. There is a time and place for the ultimate quest in being first and it usually belongs on the racing track or some similar sporting event. But in regular life, there are a lot of things that you can do at the pace you want to. You don't have to beat the others to it.
No medal will be given for getting first off the line at a traffic signal. No award will be given for being the first person from a crowd to get into a train. No cash prize will be given for being the first person to step out of the airplane doors. Arrive at the destination early, but you don't have to arrive first. Do well in the exam, but you don't have to finish first to prove you're good.
Success shouldn't be measured by how many people you beat, but by how many personal challenges you overcame.
Take a drive on Indian roads and all you see is people desperately overtaking each other like their lives depend on it. Sadly they often risk losing their lives doing this.
Stand in a queue at a railway station and you will see people pushing and shoving at you with no respect for personal space. Not only are they ready to grab an opportunity to jump the line, they live in fear of somebody else doing the same to them.
Gas Stations, Post offices, Banks, Airplanes, heck anywhere, same story. Mr. B can't bear to wait behind A. Instead, B loves waiting next to A. When space clears and A is slow, B will jump at the chance and steal A's position. But the twist is, C, D, E and F are also impatient, so poor Mr. A finds himself pushed back of the line due to a second's hesitation.
There's no compassion, there's no consideration, there's no organization. Only chaos, greed and selfishness. The quest for being numero uno. Why is everything in life a race and where are we learning this concept? Of course, it's School!
Sadly, from a very young age, kids in India are taught to aim to be better than everybody else, not aim to be brilliant individually. Everybody from teachers, to relatives, to parents, to strangers tell us that in life, you've got to be ahead of everyone else.
There was this school bus with a motto proudly printed all over it and it said - "Strive to Surpass". Really? Strive to surpass? It sounds like, as long as you're ahead of the others, you're all good. They just want to keep you ahead of the race, but sadly, only one can finish first. The rest of the hundreds of students will have failed to live up to the motto of the school.
A sad incident that went viral across the world was in Bihar with parents risking their lives to scale the walls of a multi-storeyed school building passing notes through open windows to help their kids cheat and pass the exam. With such experiences, the kids get brain washed into a narrow minded perspective that this is how life is. It's a competition and it's about beating everyone else.
The kids never realize that outside of school, different people run at different speeds and the race of life is not a one-way race. There are millions of directions to choose from. Everybody runs a different race at a different speed. For a certain student, just passing is a major achievement, for another, 98% is not enough. Different goals altogether, yet judged by the same standards.
Kids may not realize this, but parents and schools need to. If the current system of striving to surpass continues, all we will be left with, are students standing in a single file who can recite the entire text book word-to-word but not know the meaning of any of it. I've already come across such people in my life. "This is how you solve it, I don't know why, but this is the right method" - a pretty common sentence you hear in schools and colleges.
Competition is good to an extent as it brings out the best in you. But putting competition ahead of the final goal is going a bit too far. There is a time and place for the ultimate quest in being first and it usually belongs on the racing track or some similar sporting event. But in regular life, there are a lot of things that you can do at the pace you want to. You don't have to beat the others to it.
No medal will be given for getting first off the line at a traffic signal. No award will be given for being the first person from a crowd to get into a train. No cash prize will be given for being the first person to step out of the airplane doors. Arrive at the destination early, but you don't have to arrive first. Do well in the exam, but you don't have to finish first to prove you're good.
Success shouldn't be measured by how many people you beat, but by how many personal challenges you overcame.
