There is an adage in english "Do what you love,love what you do".Having inculcated this adage deeply inside, I curiously started observing people around
me.And the answer that I got,really blew my rational mind.Because most of the people,I found, were doing something they din't even like.Refusing to accept it,when I broadened my horizon,taking into account people from all strata of society,I got the similar answer.And shockingly though I had to accept that most of us(Indian) don't do
what we love to do.
In our country a child's future is decided even before he is born.The phrase like "my child will become doctor,engineer or IAS " is the most frequent topic
of discussion among our parents.And they take much pride in discussing it among a bunch of similar thinking people.But Just think.Is it really a matter of pride?For me,it's a big 'No'.
People decide the destination as well as path of their children even before they learn to walk on their feet and expect them to follow it throughout their lives.And if child tries to do anything else(even if the most nobel work),everybody criticizes him and start considering him a failure,instead of boasting and supporting him in his endeavour.Is it not a kind of exploitation?
Everybody wants his children to become doctor,engineer or IAS but seldom do we know people who want their children to become a teacher,professor or a research scholar.Why?Because the bitter but truth is that we treat our children as 'product' and want to transform them into something where their 'market value' would be maximum.Most of the children are not even allowed to realize their true passion in whole life and end up a confused soul.This is why we are piling up a huge number of so called educated 'fools' in our country.The repercussions are also before us.Despite having one of the largest pool of doctors and engineers in our country,we have failed to produce any significant discovery in the field of science.
Every problem has a root cause ,and when I shifted my focus from problem to the root cause,I got scared.The problem has taken a much deeper and worse form and it has reached down to the lowest strata of society.Then the obvious million dollar question is 'who is the culprit?'.Our parents,society or our education system?
The primary aim of schools is to provide an environment for overall development of the students ,where students could get themselves engaged in all the kinds of activities and find their true passion and potential in the process.But nowadays school education has become marks centric.Students are judged solely on the basis of marks they obtain and extra curricular activities are considered as a waste of time.we fail to realize that every child is uniquely special.Everybody has different talent and area of interest.But here we evaluate everybody on the same parameter and make self proclaimed prophecy about their future.Here I recall a famous dialogue of movie '3 idiots'."Had Sachin tendulkar become a singer and lata mangeshkar a cricketer ,would they have been equally successful in their respective lives"?Obviously no.
The second most important aspect is our parents.People often want to fulfill their dreams through their children.They want their children to achieve everything that they themselves could not.And in the process they turn their children into machines,who need need instructions at every step of life.Such children though can walk very nicely on a given path but can not make a new path for themselves.Isn't it a kind of slavery?How sad it is to know that people,knowingly or unknowingly turn their children into their own slaves.Here I want to quote from a famous writer Khalil Zibran's book "The Prophet".He writes for the parents that "your children are not your children,they are the children of Almighty.You may give them your love,but not thought,for they have their own thought".
The last but the most important aspect is our society.I don't know how but our society (which in itself uses double standards in everything) sets standards for us and expects us to follow it without fail.And if anybody wants to go beyond convention ,he is considered as a traitor.This is the reason of plummeting number of students studying arts.People treat art studying students with pity and science studying students suddenly become of higher breed.Studying arts is like embracing death in our society.And dont get me wrong here.It is also not the case that people want their children to study science for making significant contribution in the field of science.They just want their children to study science so that they could walk in the society with false pride.Studying science is not at all a bad thing ,but just think,how will a student who is interested in history ,get any pleasure in the equations of chemistry?By forcing them to study science ,ain't we taking away all their options?
The truth is that our society judges us on the basis of our bank balance,and not on our ability.People earning high(by any means) become the anchor of society,and others want their children to emulate them.Also the most shocking is the fact that people don't want their children to become doctor,engineer or IAS ,so that they will be able build a better society,but because there are more opportunities to loot.Such things are pretty much common and acceptable in our civil society.People taking unconventional routes are always ridiculed in our society.
Now the time has come that youths of our country decide their own path.Because we can achieve the summit in any field only if we do what we love.We have the living examples of Bill gates and Steve Jobs who even dropped out of the college to follow their hearts and later went on to become world's most successful people.Who can forget Mark Zekerburg?Facebook from being a small social networking site went on to become a billion dollar company,and that is only because a twenty year young man decided to follow his heart.We also have our own example of Rabindra nath tagore who defied to be bound by the conventional mode of education,and still went on to become the first indian to get Nobel prize in the field of literature.
Hence as a student I want to appeal to parents that we have learnt everything from you only.Now lets us free of your thoughts and expectations.Let us decide our destination as well as path.Just support us and share our dreams.We may not earn a lot of money pursuing our dreams,but we will be happy and satisfied.Moreover as far as society is concerned,we form society.And If we change,gradually society will also change.
me.And the answer that I got,really blew my rational mind.Because most of the people,I found, were doing something they din't even like.Refusing to accept it,when I broadened my horizon,taking into account people from all strata of society,I got the similar answer.And shockingly though I had to accept that most of us(Indian) don't do
what we love to do.
In our country a child's future is decided even before he is born.The phrase like "my child will become doctor,engineer or IAS " is the most frequent topic
of discussion among our parents.And they take much pride in discussing it among a bunch of similar thinking people.But Just think.Is it really a matter of pride?For me,it's a big 'No'.
People decide the destination as well as path of their children even before they learn to walk on their feet and expect them to follow it throughout their lives.And if child tries to do anything else(even if the most nobel work),everybody criticizes him and start considering him a failure,instead of boasting and supporting him in his endeavour.Is it not a kind of exploitation?
Everybody wants his children to become doctor,engineer or IAS but seldom do we know people who want their children to become a teacher,professor or a research scholar.Why?Because the bitter but truth is that we treat our children as 'product' and want to transform them into something where their 'market value' would be maximum.Most of the children are not even allowed to realize their true passion in whole life and end up a confused soul.This is why we are piling up a huge number of so called educated 'fools' in our country.The repercussions are also before us.Despite having one of the largest pool of doctors and engineers in our country,we have failed to produce any significant discovery in the field of science.
Every problem has a root cause ,and when I shifted my focus from problem to the root cause,I got scared.The problem has taken a much deeper and worse form and it has reached down to the lowest strata of society.Then the obvious million dollar question is 'who is the culprit?'.Our parents,society or our education system?
The primary aim of schools is to provide an environment for overall development of the students ,where students could get themselves engaged in all the kinds of activities and find their true passion and potential in the process.But nowadays school education has become marks centric.Students are judged solely on the basis of marks they obtain and extra curricular activities are considered as a waste of time.we fail to realize that every child is uniquely special.Everybody has different talent and area of interest.But here we evaluate everybody on the same parameter and make self proclaimed prophecy about their future.Here I recall a famous dialogue of movie '3 idiots'."Had Sachin tendulkar become a singer and lata mangeshkar a cricketer ,would they have been equally successful in their respective lives"?Obviously no.
The second most important aspect is our parents.People often want to fulfill their dreams through their children.They want their children to achieve everything that they themselves could not.And in the process they turn their children into machines,who need need instructions at every step of life.Such children though can walk very nicely on a given path but can not make a new path for themselves.Isn't it a kind of slavery?How sad it is to know that people,knowingly or unknowingly turn their children into their own slaves.Here I want to quote from a famous writer Khalil Zibran's book "The Prophet".He writes for the parents that "your children are not your children,they are the children of Almighty.You may give them your love,but not thought,for they have their own thought".
The last but the most important aspect is our society.I don't know how but our society (which in itself uses double standards in everything) sets standards for us and expects us to follow it without fail.And if anybody wants to go beyond convention ,he is considered as a traitor.This is the reason of plummeting number of students studying arts.People treat art studying students with pity and science studying students suddenly become of higher breed.Studying arts is like embracing death in our society.And dont get me wrong here.It is also not the case that people want their children to study science for making significant contribution in the field of science.They just want their children to study science so that they could walk in the society with false pride.Studying science is not at all a bad thing ,but just think,how will a student who is interested in history ,get any pleasure in the equations of chemistry?By forcing them to study science ,ain't we taking away all their options?
The truth is that our society judges us on the basis of our bank balance,and not on our ability.People earning high(by any means) become the anchor of society,and others want their children to emulate them.Also the most shocking is the fact that people don't want their children to become doctor,engineer or IAS ,so that they will be able build a better society,but because there are more opportunities to loot.Such things are pretty much common and acceptable in our civil society.People taking unconventional routes are always ridiculed in our society.
Now the time has come that youths of our country decide their own path.Because we can achieve the summit in any field only if we do what we love.We have the living examples of Bill gates and Steve Jobs who even dropped out of the college to follow their hearts and later went on to become world's most successful people.Who can forget Mark Zekerburg?Facebook from being a small social networking site went on to become a billion dollar company,and that is only because a twenty year young man decided to follow his heart.We also have our own example of Rabindra nath tagore who defied to be bound by the conventional mode of education,and still went on to become the first indian to get Nobel prize in the field of literature.
Hence as a student I want to appeal to parents that we have learnt everything from you only.Now lets us free of your thoughts and expectations.Let us decide our destination as well as path.Just support us and share our dreams.We may not earn a lot of money pursuing our dreams,but we will be happy and satisfied.Moreover as far as society is concerned,we form society.And If we change,gradually society will also change.
Superb article, and the content is 100% true. I wish this message to spread across many people. Gaurav, 1st post in your blog very impressive, you are going in good direction, keep it up :-)All the best
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