A higher purpose makes it worth living
A child must be a topper at school, or else face a
bleak future! That is what tiny souls have been indoctrinated into believing
and acting. The aspirations of most youth hardly extend beyond a hefty pay
package at a multi-national company, a pretty life partner and a flat in a posh
locality.
We must all have a purpose in life to sustain our spirits. “The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder — waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you,” said Scottish author Thomas Carlyle.
And the choice of purpose is crucial; its nature determines what one achieves in life as also the level of satisfaction derived in its pursuit. If the purpose is scholastic achievement, material assets, garnering political clout, gaining stage popularity, or becoming a business tycoon, the end result is likely ennui, frustration and eventual annihilation. However, if the ambition is linked with a wider spiritual or philanthropic pursuit, bliss is assured.
Our values and lifestyle tend to precipitate stress, anxiety, depression, personal breakdown and suicidal thoughts, which can be warded off by pinning on a life purpose encompassing such attributes as a sense of belonging and gratitude, staying true to oneself and others, sympathy for fellow beings and sharing of intrinsic concerns. With a positive lifestyle one can maintain inner rhythm and peace.
Many parents spend sleepless nights over the unreasonable demands and growing aggressiveness of their children. A disturbing fact that bespeaks of the mental sickness of our young ones is the high suicidal rate in the 15-29 years age group; as per the National Crime Records Bureau, 8,952 student suicides were witnessed in 2015. Emphasis on scholastic scores does more harm than good.
To the query, “Why are the toppers in high school so rarely the toppers in real life?” Eric Barker, a screenwriter & blogger on good living says, “Academic grades correlate only loosely with intelligence.”
Partly to be blamed for rendering children restive are the parents who enthusiastically support their wards going digital by opening Facebook accounts of the new born, feel elated at their young ones confidently, rather reflexively, playing games on the mobile phones. As early as age five or six, many urban children are assigned a separate living room with internet, to which they become addicted. Alas, the parents realise it too late, after landing in some cyber trouble.
At that stage, the ‘home-coming’ of these children from the cyber world becomes quite a challenge despite the best counsellor’s intervention. In the US, some 33 children below 12 years commit suicide every year. This has a strong message for us in India.
Each suicide is a unique case involving multiple factors. However, suicides are treated as a hot issue by the media and politicians, who look to profit from it. Rather than highlighting the uniqueness of circumstances, often a psychiatric illness in the background that leads one to contemplate and commit suicide, such events are aired to make headlines or settle political scores.
Worse, one cannot even rule out that many suicides are also the result of someone else’s game plans that end up making the vulnerable and the mentally fragile the scapegoats.
Like, if S Anitha of Tamil Nadu, who committed suicide early this month, had been taken into confidence and positively convinced about numerous possibilities for a meaningful living other than entry into a MBBS programme, a life could have been saved.
In the lethal Blue Whale game again, which has taken over 250 lives worldwide, including some in India, it is the vulnerable who are first identified and brainwashed by the handler that life is not worth living.
Man does not come into the world of his own volition. As such, he is not entitled to end his life either of his own volition. What defines us is, how well we rise after falling. There are numerous beautiful places we have not visited, flowers and plants we have not seen, wonderful people we have not interacted with, and so on, all of which make life worth living.
We must all have a purpose in life to sustain our spirits. “The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder — waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you,” said Scottish author Thomas Carlyle.
And the choice of purpose is crucial; its nature determines what one achieves in life as also the level of satisfaction derived in its pursuit. If the purpose is scholastic achievement, material assets, garnering political clout, gaining stage popularity, or becoming a business tycoon, the end result is likely ennui, frustration and eventual annihilation. However, if the ambition is linked with a wider spiritual or philanthropic pursuit, bliss is assured.
Our values and lifestyle tend to precipitate stress, anxiety, depression, personal breakdown and suicidal thoughts, which can be warded off by pinning on a life purpose encompassing such attributes as a sense of belonging and gratitude, staying true to oneself and others, sympathy for fellow beings and sharing of intrinsic concerns. With a positive lifestyle one can maintain inner rhythm and peace.
Many parents spend sleepless nights over the unreasonable demands and growing aggressiveness of their children. A disturbing fact that bespeaks of the mental sickness of our young ones is the high suicidal rate in the 15-29 years age group; as per the National Crime Records Bureau, 8,952 student suicides were witnessed in 2015. Emphasis on scholastic scores does more harm than good.
To the query, “Why are the toppers in high school so rarely the toppers in real life?” Eric Barker, a screenwriter & blogger on good living says, “Academic grades correlate only loosely with intelligence.”
Partly to be blamed for rendering children restive are the parents who enthusiastically support their wards going digital by opening Facebook accounts of the new born, feel elated at their young ones confidently, rather reflexively, playing games on the mobile phones. As early as age five or six, many urban children are assigned a separate living room with internet, to which they become addicted. Alas, the parents realise it too late, after landing in some cyber trouble.
At that stage, the ‘home-coming’ of these children from the cyber world becomes quite a challenge despite the best counsellor’s intervention. In the US, some 33 children below 12 years commit suicide every year. This has a strong message for us in India.
Each suicide is a unique case involving multiple factors. However, suicides are treated as a hot issue by the media and politicians, who look to profit from it. Rather than highlighting the uniqueness of circumstances, often a psychiatric illness in the background that leads one to contemplate and commit suicide, such events are aired to make headlines or settle political scores.
Worse, one cannot even rule out that many suicides are also the result of someone else’s game plans that end up making the vulnerable and the mentally fragile the scapegoats.
Like, if S Anitha of Tamil Nadu, who committed suicide early this month, had been taken into confidence and positively convinced about numerous possibilities for a meaningful living other than entry into a MBBS programme, a life could have been saved.
In the lethal Blue Whale game again, which has taken over 250 lives worldwide, including some in India, it is the vulnerable who are first identified and brainwashed by the handler that life is not worth living.
Man does not come into the world of his own volition. As such, he is not entitled to end his life either of his own volition. What defines us is, how well we rise after falling. There are numerous beautiful places we have not visited, flowers and plants we have not seen, wonderful people we have not interacted with, and so on, all of which make life worth living.
(From an article by Harish
Barthwal in Deccan Herald Sep 8 2017)
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