Living a Fantasy is better than.................

Sometime back, I came across a statement which goes like “ living a fantasy is better than living an act………” What exactly does it mean? Are we supposed to live in the world of fairy tales or believe in the existence of Santa Clause? I was baffled for a moment thinking why are people so afraid of facing the reality? Why do they fancy themselves to live in a world which is outwardly, which only exists in our imagination or may not be a part of imagination anymore because our imaginations are nothing but fragments of reality.

An act is what is happening on a daily life. Living an act would mean addressing the situation and taking stock of the reality whereas living a fantasy would be trying to delude yourself into a world which does not exist, which does not have any evil in it, where there is hope everywhere, the good always wins over the evil and happiness is the outcome of every story. A world of fantasy is where there is no suffering, no lie no deceit and where desire, hope, happiness, expectations........ still have their meanings alive.

It’s a world in which my six year old or my infant might be living in. My daughter watched a movie a couple of nights back with her dad called “In conversation with God”. That night she woke up in horror sobbing and seemingly very perturbed. I was scared. Asked her what was the matter, and she told me that the movie that she saw had a poor old man in it who was very hungry, didn’t have any food to eat so he was eating food from the garbage, and people, instead of trying to help this old man out were making fun of him. I smiled at her calmed her down. Told her, well its just a story, a work of fiction and she shouldn’t worry about these things at all. She asked, so this man did have food to eat right? People don’t make fun of old poor people right? I replied, no they don’t, and don’t get so upset about all these things. It was a work of fiction and nothing was for real…………

She went back to sleep feeling confident that everything is fine and the world is not so bad after all and whatever they showed doesn’t happen for real………… .......
That calm satisfied look on her face made me wonder how could I ever tell her that the reality is far more worse than that. How could I tell her that the world she is living in right now is pure fantasy. The reality out there is very cruel and ugly. How could I tell her that we are living in a seemingly intolerant society these days. There is anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge. There is a person who is so angry with the world that he decides to go to a mall or school or a church and starts shooting randomly at the innocent defenseless crowd. What explanation do I have for the killings of babies by their own parents? People kill each other in the name of God .Call me old fashioned, but in the in the name of modernity and self expression the young crowd in their teens are talking or writing so voraciously about the topics which could be so explosive in nature. Nothing is sacred anymore, no sanctity, people don’t care, responsible or irresponsible that’s my life…… is what I hear. What explanations do I have, I was bewildered……….

Doesn’t happen for real, doesn’t happen for real, my own words kept echoing………..and I realized, its not about the fairy tales or the existence of Santa Clause. Its about the pure humanitarian values that’s becoming a fantasy for us, and the statement “living a fantasy is better than living an act” made perfect sense to me.

At least we have something to look up to ……….a life of hope and happiness…………….

Sundials in the shade

“Give me a specific example of what you would like to call the biggest failure of your life and how you dealt with that?” sounds familiar? Well, this was the question I was asked at a recent job interview. I took a long pause. Its not that I wasn’t prepared for this question but the time it took me to answer that question sure must have exhibited my unpreparedness for the interview. The weird part is, before facing any new challenge or going for a job interview requires us to be well acquainted with our weaknesses. Why? Are they trying to set us up for the next set of failures? Why is it not important for him to find out who am I by knowing what I do best or what my strengths are?

Most organizations are built on the assumption that:

• one can learn to be competent in almost anything
  
• Once you identify or acknowledge your weaknesses, the organization will help manifest growth in those areas through the specific tools or training materials that they might be having in place.
  

I wasn’t sure if marks in any specific examination or not passing a particular exam or not finding the most desired career path or not working for an XYZ company or …………….what, would I consider my biggest failure? Whether not being able to fulfill the dream of becoming a writer or not seeing my name on the Billboard would fit into the category of failure? Life, to me, is a series of successes and failures. The biggest failure? I don’t understand that. Everything becomes irrelevant in life as we move on. We are always looking for something more, something new or something more challenging. In that respect as long as we are living thriving individuals, these will be a part of life and the fact that I am still looking for more should be a good enough example that I never give up and that’s how I handle it!

I recently finished reading a book by Markus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton, called NOW, DISCOVER YOUR STRENGHTS. It tells us that the “the real tragedy of life is not that each of us doesn’t have enough strengths, it’s that we fail to use the ones we have. The acid test of the strength is that it can be done consistently and nearly perfectly which cannot be perfected without an underlying talent to it”. What an eye opening statement it was! Aren’t we always trying to fit in and fix what may not be our strengths? If a person is good at something he is expected to shift direction in the area where he might be lacking so that he can emerge someone with an all round personality. Result is, we end up concentrating toward building a society of mediocres because this all round personality according to me, is a misnomer. Would Tiger Woods start playing Tennis or Whitney Houston start writing novels to have an all round personality? They are doing what they do best. We listen to Joel Osteen because motivational speaking is his natural talent. He worked around his natural talent and is able to draw a crowd of thousands of people. I have read that writing fantasy came naturally to J K Rowling. In fact she wrote her first fantasy story at the age of 6. No wonder she is no.2 on the list of women Billionaires. She worked more and more around it rather than trying to figure out if she could also lay her hands at writing thrillers…………

Well, I found my answer. I knew my failure was not to listen to my instincts and natural talents and trying fix my weak point and fit in…………..I would say listen to your instincts and play around your natural talents. Do you?