Self-inflicting love for security!
Desh Bir
At the age of twenty one I joined a job and at fifty eight I retired from the same department, of course with some promotions, in due course. In between came an opportunity to switch over when I was able to crack the old civil services exam in 1978.
I did not choose the road that nature had laid bare before me as an opportunity. I thought I was more secure in the existing job and let the opportunity go. That was Robert Frost’s “The Road not taken” which could have made a lot of difference and given me an opportunity to see life from some other angle. Precisely that is what happens with all human beings.
Buying an insurance policy to provide for you during a rough patch in health issues is not an issue for debate here. What we’re considering here is choosing a course that can transform the whole orientation in terms of a career. At every step we keep fearing that any foraying into an area of new activity or experience can have adverse consequences.
Such apprehensions, if based on logical analysis and conclusions may be considered advisable. However, if they emerge simply out of a general fear of any change, they also obliterate the possibilities of a better life, better work experience, and better human interaction and possibly better perceptions about human nature, about this universe and the divine plan.
Among the hill folk there is a practice of using the same route while coming back from any venture to a new destination. It has its roots in the fear of losing the way among the serpentine tracks and trails in the hilly terrain.
Consequently to every child on a mission out of home the mother’s advice is to “take the same path while coming back!” No doubt, it helps the child get back home comfortably, yet it kills all initiative and possibilities of exploring new routes and passing through the experience and thrill of losing the way and then finding a new one to his destination back home. These are the initial lessons of a debilitating kind which instill in man an excessive dread of insecurity. The unhealthy consequences of such a love for security and fear of challenges make weaklings of us all.
If “Safety Saves” is a good precept, then it is applicable only to road traffic rules. It is only a warning not to be too rash. Any excessive application of such a precept to life in general only limits your opportunities and possibilities to blossom in life. As J B Krishnamurthy says a largely pervading love for security leads to mediocrity and kills all sense of adventure, experimentation , exploration and joie de vivre. Lack of mobility into new arenas leads to stagnation and sometimes creates a sense of defeat. Many a time, many a promising human being remains willingly stuck to an unrewarding tenor of life and finally that creates a sense of purposelessness.
It is very heartening that these days, here and there, we find examples of young people opting to break fresh ground and hopping from one career to another, from one discipline to another and finally touching the acme in the chosen field. That is a sign of embracing life in its entirety. Boys and girls are now choosing to go in for careers in foreign lands after taking up new career courses there. That is synonymous with ebullience which life stands for.
There are cases of village adventurers making it to Delhi Bombay and Calcutta long long ago as daily earners at meager wages and ending up as owners of huge industrial empires. The case of the patriarch of MDH who passed away recently is an excellent example of such tenacity which changed a tonga walla into a Spice-king! Here and there , we find examples of girls and boys who graduate in one discipline but choose another vocation entirely different from what they had studied in their courses. They make success stories as they are ready to take the risk of following their passion.
Among my acquaintances I have known a young lady who graduated in dental science, then worked as a radio jockey and finally landed in civil service! Perhaps, she found her destination because she refused to stagnate. Embracing the sense of security can be a crippler! It can be valuable only within certain sane limits. Or else, it becomes a case of self-infliction!
(The author is a Retired Principal, Govt. College, Hoshiarpur-Punjab. He is a regular contributor to Kashmir Vision)
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