Means and Ends

There was a farmer who grew superior quality of crop. Each year he used to win prizes for that in his state.

One reporter tracked him down and asked, " How can you afford to share your best seeds with your neighbors when they are entering in competition with you each year?"

"Why not sir?", said the farmer, "Do you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening crop and swirls it from field to field."

"If my neighbors grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality crop, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my crop."

"If I am to grow good crop, I must help my neighbors grow good crop."

What would you do if you were in that farmer's place? You too would want to win. Won't you? But at what cost? Let me tell you this - you are in his place. Just replace the word 'crop' in above story with 'thoughts', 'habits', 'ideas', or 'thinking pattern', and think. 'If I am to grow good results, I must help my neighbors grow good results' - How does that sound?

We live in a world of competition. Our actions are generally driven by the outcomes. But please think about this - Don't we look at the path followed once we have achieved results? What gives us satisfaction then? The means or the ends? Process or product? Path or destination?

'Means' mean the path or process chosen to achieve desired results or ends. Which one is more important?

In this struggle for survival, people are not willing to share their knowledge with others. They crave for their own name, fame and wealth. This shifts their focus away from the path. But it is your responsibility to share your knowledge with others and help them improve their way of life. This will also give you an opportunity to purify yourself. If you want to do well, help someone else do well. If you want to be happy, make someone else happy.

Which is the ultimate end of life?

Which is the best way to achieve it?

Try to think in this dimension.

The value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. Can you be resolute enough to follow your values and principles in every walk of life? Can you develop an uncompromising attitude when your ethics are challenged by the crises? People often rely upon the term 'Practical action' when their will is not strong enough to back up their values. Then they do what others would do - in offices, society, relationships and may be everywhere. They stop being adamant to not compromise with their values. Instead of standing for right , they turn somewhere else. This happens when they are blinded by the short-term benefits or fear of losing all that is earned. Lack of self-confidence can also blur the judgment. Lack of self-confidence can be due to the forgotten practice of using it in the first place, because after certain level of growth, growth brings growth. It becomes routine. Believing in yourself goes out of practice after a while. Do you know someone of this sort? Are you one of them?

Previously I asked - Which one is more important out of path and process. Answer is, both are important. You can neither walk correctly by looking only at the goal, nor by looking only at your feet. You have to watch your every step keeping the goal in sight.

If you do not have a goal, there is no point in planning your days.

If you do not plan your days, you do not have a goal.

It's as if, if you change even one variable of the equation, results change.

Question is, where do you place your values.

What is your end?

What are you going to do?

"For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

"God rests in reason. God moves in passion."

- Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)