Dignity Gritty

Amongst stories of soaring e-commerce valuations, this Mint story on Indiaplaza, and how it ran out of cash, was quite a sobering read. But it wasn’t the business angle that stuck with me long after I finished reading it. I somehow felt that all Mr.Vaitheeswaran was seeking, was a little dignity. I have no idea of what really happened, so I cannot comment on whether that is deserved or not.

A few weekends ago, we were visited by someone who is a consultant for some work we needed done at home. She charged us Rs.2000 for a couple of hours, and after business was concluded, she spoke about how, a few years ago,  she had been a VP at a well known consultancy firm. Her current business, born out of her passion, was not doing well. She wanted to get back to work but was finding it extremely difficult to land a job. After she left, I wondered aloud to D, how she must feel, having to go to strangers’ houses on Sundays, and working for a compensation far below what she might have been earning. What would this experience be doing to her sense of dignity?

Both stories reminded me of a post by Scott Adams a while back on dignity where he argued that human dignity is one of the biggest obstacles to happiness, wealth, and success. As he rightly notes, dignity is closely linked with ego, fear of failure, pride etc, and

Sometimes life requires that we take jobs below our station until we learn skills, offer apologies even when we are wronged, suck-up to power when necessary, work long hours when we “deserve” some rest, risk embarrassment in front of witnesses, risk failure and humiliation, and get rejected by the people we hope to love. In that sort of game, the player unburdened with human dignity usually wins.

It is difficult to argue that. But then again, it does come back to what each individual requires of life. Maybe, when operating for that requirement, the dignity tradeoff does not even seem like one. But if there is no real understanding of one’s ‘requirement’, or one is not strong enough to bear indignity even when one’s stated goal is at stake, there is bound to be grief involved. And both, unfortunately, are very common human conditions. Once again, I am forced to consider – which watcher seeks dignity – the one that represents others’ perception of me or the other that represents self perception. Is it worth it, for either?

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