Taking Charge of Your Life

In India there is a custom, when a new boy or girl is born, the elder of the family - mostly the grandmother of the family - comes and picks up the child, looks at the child, and then defines a vision for the child.

If it's a girl child, she would say your fingers are so long that you will be an artist or your eyes are so bright that you will be a Nasa scientist. If it’s a boy child, she might say your legs are so long that you will be an athlete or win an Olympic gold. So an early vision is defined by this grandmother when she picks up the child for the first time, and all of us gathered around her really believe in that vision for the child.

As the child grows up and goes into our education system, she keeps being reminded of that vision.

Unfortunately, as the child grows up and steps into a job, that is the time, when some of our young managers forget the vision their grandmother drew for them, or the vision that got converted into a desire or the dream, which they aspired for when they stepped into the job. They forget that.

What becomes more important and obsessive at that juncture - and it actually starts with the education system - is what i call the comparative rat race. In that comparative rat race we forget what we really aspired to be, what we really dreamed to be and what we really desired.

The question I have for you is: Isn't this a manipulation which your mind is playing on you. Isn't your mind manipulating you to believe that the comparative rat race - which you may be running in education and further on in the job - is the way to go and not redefining yourself back to the basics of what you really dreamt and aspired to be.

I would say that the answer to that question is ‘Yes’ for most of us, and we need to stop and take charge of our life and guide it with a vision, as our grandmother had told us to do. Taking charge of your life is a big and bold decision which many young people in our country and all across the world will have to do, if we have to have more happier people; people who deliver higher performance; people who bring about substantial change in the results, which in our life time we will see in the world.

I believe that taking charge is very important but the question is how?

I am sure there are stories out there of people who have stopped in this comparative, competitive evaluative process and reflected and took charge of their lives. They are in control and will not allow somebody else to run to their lives. I would be very interested in hearing those stories and I would also talk to you about some stories, which i think would be relevant for some of you in thinking about how to take charge of your life.