The marble philosophy

Perfection is relative, ephemeral and transitory in nature as the basic objective of perfection is to achieve and compare one’s performance with a benchmark, which by itself is a relative incident. A famous novelist in his address to an elite batch of Business Administration students in Pune, dwelt upon the core values of health (both physical and mental), human relationship and the present crisis of work life balance. While urging the youngsters to carve in a sense of joy and content in their lives, he advised them not to aim at achieving perfection in anything or everything they do.

 Say for example, a child studying in high school aims at achieving high marks, as it is believed that the benchmark of a successful student is securing highest marks in the board examination. The child is imbibed with this passion and drives all her energy in this direction only to discover later that the real objective of securing high marks in the examination was a prelude to getting into a good institution for further studies. She again drives all her time and energy to get a good grade in the institution, only to discover later that the benchmark was to enable her for a better campus placement so that she could land herself in an enviable organization with a fat paycheck and a host of perquisites. Year after year she slogs her way in the organization aiming for the top of the shelf performance appraisals, to discover one day that all throughout her life she has been urged, cajoled, coaxed and imbibed with a sense of achieving the benchmark with perfection. The novelist speaks against this sense of perfection in achieving benchmarks, as he feels that the entire process is like a game of spoon and marbles that we play in the lower school. Almost all the participants’ aim at perfecting the art of balancing the spoon inside the mouth with the marble neatly perched in it and running briskly so as to reach the finishing line ahead of others, giving rise to a variety of situations. In the first situation, we find a large number of students start with a quick jerk, as their sole aim is to reach the finishing line and in the process are blissfully unaware of either the spoon or the marble. Majority of us belong to this category where we are only conscious of the race to be run and gleefully neglect the marble and the spoon, where spoon refers to the mind and marbles refer to our health, thoughts, deeds and relationship. In our quest to reach the finishing line of desire and ambitions we tend to neglect the basic tenets of life and after reaching the line we are faced with the twin dilemma of both losing out on the marbles as well as redefining a new finishing line again. In the second situation, a handful of students will focus more on the spoon and while taking quick steps would always be careful not to sway the head so that the spoon remains intact but the impact of the steps will lead to the marbles falling off the spoon. These category of people are always risk averse, take calculated steps and aim at perfection as a result of which they also loose out on the marbles of life and despite reaching the finishing line with the spoon inside the mouth and ahead of others find that they have lost out on life. The third situation would throw up a handful of students start in the normal process and walk joyfully with the spoon and marbles intact in their mouth. These group are neither keen to watch others nor are they bothered by other competitors and as they glide through the process with their mind and body exuberating joy and contentment. They fully understand that the entire distance to be covered is a journey in itself and there is no benchmark as regards time or the number of marbles and it is this attitude that makes them real winners. Similarly in life, we should not run the race with the finishing line in mind nor should we always look out how to beat others and stay ahead without realizing the fact that after reaching the finishing line we will be pained to find that all the marbles have dropped off from the spoon and despite reaching the finishing line we have failed miserably in the game called life. Treading in the slow lane and keeping a watch over the marbles by enjoying every little joy that comes in our way is the key to reaching the finishing line successfully and happy.