By Jagdesh Singh | Opinion |
We are stubborn creatures. Our thoughts, our actions, our behaviors do not change much. To the point where our characters are defined almost absolutely until we leave this plane of existence. It is very rare that a conversation with an opposing idea ever changes our minds. This is why everything we argue about – politics, religion or even football – tend to be tribal and quickly closed off to black and white answers. It’s either or, never maybe. But life is organic, and almost everything tends to be a mixture of colors including black, white and gray.
When our perspectives change, typically by being in situations that are opposites to what we’ve experienced before, that moment creates a catalyst that changes our ideas, our thoughts. But these changes in ideas and thoughts don’t necessarily alter our fundamental beliefs, and our characters mostly stay the same. We remain stubborn.
We’ve all collectively lived through a pretty traumatic period in our collective lives in the past 3 years. Some have succumbed. Some suffered loss. Some actually suffered for a while with their lives hanging on a thin sliver of hope. In the grand big picture, there was a brief period where many of us made vows to ourselves or to the Gods that we would appreciate life a little more, and don’t sweat the small things in life.
Fast forward to today, and it seems like we’ve gone back to our pre-pandemic ways. Our daily toil to earn our income has somewhat increased. Schools, exams, competitions are back, some with a vengeance. Take a look at the morning traffic. The rush is back. The anger that comes along with the rush is definitely back.
I personally have had a few struggles. Eager to get back to life as it was before, I dived into the competitive pool head on. I worked harder, desperately looking for opportunities anywhere I could. I became envious of those that had more than me materialistically. I wanted my daughters to excel and beat their competition to the ground. It dawned upon me that to compete was to compare with others. And to compare with others, I’ve learned a long time ago, was a folly thing to do. Because every single living soul had to experience an infinite amount of very different experiences to get where they’re standing today. There is no way another soul has the same identical experiences since birth to have different outcomes in what they’re achieving today. A very silly thing to do – to compare.
And those so-called vows I made during the pandemic days of lockdown and fear, became distant memories. Like beach sands swept by the crashing sea water waves. Perspectives did change, during the pandemic. Ideas and thoughts did change. But I was still the same. Anxious. Fearful. Sweating the small stuff.
As I write this, my perspective is changing again. I’ve had a medical scare. My biggest paranoia has always been of dying at an age not old enough for my daughters to be independent. This was the same fear during the pandemic when anybody could’ve got Covid. Now, with this fear, the rat race and the competition are very uninteresting to me. Again. Like the seasons that come and go, these wake-up calls do come at a more frequent rate.
I suppose I will stop to smell the roses for now. Spend time with my loved ones, no matter how cliched that sounds. But what bugs me is my stubbornness. When I do survive this scare, I will slowly have selective memory again, and my character wouldn’t have changed. But the good news about my perspectives changing is that there is clarity on what is important. There is clarity on what the small things are in the grand scheme of things. The competition, the rat race, the struggle with greed and envy – all small things when my very life is in question. I hope, and I pray, that this wake-up call lasts a lot longer for my stubborn character.
Jagdesh Singh, a Kuala Lumpur-based executive with a US multinational company, is a father of three girls who are as opinionated as their mother
* This is the opinion of the writer, organisation or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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