While discussing a ’40 under 40′ list, I joked the other day to a colleague that my only chance of getting into one now was to reduce my weight by about 15 kg in a few years! It made me think of a strange yardstick I have employed in valuing others’ achievements – their age. To elaborate, if I came across a person who had attained a measure of success, I would be mollified if I figured that the person was at least as old as I was. If they were younger, mollified would be replaced by mortified. How dare they achieve something earlier in life?! Very strange, I know. I have quite a few theories on it – upbringing, a ‘paying your dues’ perspective, the way I have progressed in my career and what I’ve had to do, or perhaps just the result of being brought up in an age when folks worked hard all their life to attain things that we might consider a basic need now.
I gained freedom from it (or so I think) quite recently. The irony was that this realisation dawned just after a meeting with someone whom I would say has been quite successful in his profession. As I made my way back home in a cab, I passed quite a few bus stops. It was late evening, and people were waiting for a bus to take them home. Young people, middle aged people, and even a few old people, their faces echoing their toils. Perhaps they had a long bus ride ahead of them, perhaps they would have to stand all the way, perhaps they would have to get down midway and catch another bus. This was their life everyday, the cards they were dealt. Some might be unhappy, some would have made their peace, and some might even be happy. Their lot in life, or a bus they missed at some point in their life. Even as I had many, many things to be thankful for. So, what business did I have grudging someone because they worked hard and/or were lucky enough to make a mark early in life?
In addition to the reasons I stated about my age yardstick, perhaps there is also an underlying realisation that time is running out – to find a purpose, to know why I am here, now. A related thought occurred to me a few days ago. As we enter the era of augmented humanity, and lifespans begin to increase manifold, time would increasingly become an unlimited commodity. Would I/someone who thought like me about time behave differently then? Live a life never shadowed by an age – life stage – achievement template? Or will this how life will always be?
Two entirely different reasons and both equally true. Some time one misses the bus ( self- inflicted or may be circumstantial) and some time it is the cards dealt by The Hand. Outcome same. Life!
Free will or determinism, it ends up in the same place? 🙂