Ask a child what he or she wants to be when he grows up, and
you’ll probably hear answers like “ Fireman ! “ , “ Policeman ! “ , “ Teacher !
“ , “ Doctor “, and the odd superhero thrown in here and there. If you look
closely, these occupations deal with noble intentions of saving lives, passing
knowledge, being an asset to society.
Unfortunately, as children grow up, they lose these notions
, or innocence, if you may. Instead, what starts as a relentless pursuit of
what is right, slowly turns into an endless pursuit of meaningless knowledge. A
ceaseless paper chase, so to speak.
Look around you, and you see people trying to climb the
rungs of a ladder that leads to infinity, some start to realize the
listlessness of their efforts, but yet continue climbing up the ladder, perhaps
they know not how to do anything else, or perhaps they’re forced up by the
crowds pushing them from below.
We are a society bound by numbers, ranks, and figures. Have you ever sat down, and truly thought
about how incredibly sad it is that we measure success based on how someone
else is doing better than you are ? And in doing so, we forget to look back at
how far we ourselves have come. Is that what self worth has been whittled down
to ?
Perhaps it’s time to let go of the rungs of that ladder. Who
knows, you may learn that you have wings that already know how to fly. You’ve
just been allowing the voices of someone else’s discontent drown out the
flutter all this while.
A wise young girl once said, “ you may tell me you can do a lot of things, you have top
grades, you are a high achiever, you hit all your goals, but tell me instead,
what have you done with those results, and achievements, numbers, ranks and
figures you’ve amassed ? How many lives have you touched ? How many people have you influenced? “,
because, what use is talent, and knowledge, if it doesn’t have an appreciable
impact on social good ?
I think it is a question we should all struggle to answer ...
