Hold On or Let Go?

Unintelligent & inconsiderate people (or communities or systems) who are associated with you can undo what you've done. It is bunkum to say everything is under your control. We live in an interdependent world & need to face the consequences of things we may not be responsible for. What matters is how you deal with your luck and get up every time you are knocked off, whilst understanding you may fall more frequently than you think (and accepting it). What ultimately matters is how long you are not willing to give up. What ultimately matters is how much of the fight is left within you and how much energy you can muster and re-build every time you fall or fail. 

When it is said that Life is not what happens to you but how you react to it, there is more to it than what meets the eye. It does not mean that you can still decide every single thing and get exactly what you want despite other external influences. It actually indicates that your life could be drastically different from what you intend it to be like and you better be prepared for it. You may not get what you want at times. You may have to change your plan and approach at times. You may have to adapt yourself to a new situation almost every time something external changes it. It may still mean lost opportunities. It may still mean a change of ideas. It may still mean a change of desires. 

There is a time when you can be obstinate and chase whatever you wanted to all your life, till you achieve it, despite a million set-backs and there are times when you must go with what emerges and be ready to change your own mind or desire. You must be in a position to decide what you cannot compromise on and what you will never ever give up on and what you will have to let go of in order to accommodate for the uncertainties of life.

Collective Learning

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to change the way children learn into a more collaborative experience. At the end of the decade, for them to grow up and be good members of the society and achieve something meaningful, they must learn to listen deeply, appreciate others' views and let each person express himself while still arriving at independent conclusions. Eventually, though, it is about posing the right questions as a collective, putting everything together and filtering the noise. 


Update: So, why do you think this is funny? :-P Because it sounds contradictory and paradoxical? However, I do think I have not articulated what's in my head well enough.... 

I am not saying we must not think independently. Just saying we must learn the art of arriving at independent conclusions and at the same time learn to appreciate that others may have different views due to their own perceptions, experiences and background. We need to be able to see why they think the way they think! 

If we can then put various ideas together and filter out what the collective thinks is noise, it may lead to a good decision in corporate environments. Lone artists or innovators can still go ahead and do their own thing without checking with anyone ;-)

Decision Making

We all arrive at conclusions, take decisions and judge situations and people based on information that we have access to. Some of us settle for the raw information that comes to us. Some analyze it and discard what does not seem useful or 'right' and add their own perspective (based on past experiences, insights, intuition) to the rest and then conclude/decide/judge. Some embark on a journey to collect more information from other sources that they think are reliable, objective etc before they take the next step. 

In the last case, the preferred length of the journey depends on various factors like the significance and complexity of the situation, consequences of taking decisions or judging people, availability and cost of information, distractions and changing priorities etc. No one can say for sure that the person who embarks on a long journey and collects tons of information before concluding on something is more likely to arrive at the right conclusion as compared to someone who settles for raw information. The degree of information consumption varies from person to person and like in everything else, one thinks that the best strategy is moderation. We should neither settle for raw information and jump to uneducated conclusions nor should we reserve our judgment until death or, well, the obsoleteness of the requirement.