Flights Of Fantasy
[ M Panging Pao ]
Harder Right over Easier Wrong…!! Is this an oxymoron…a combination of contradictory words like deafening silence…natural actor…true story..? Or…is this a universally true statement..?
Are right things always hard..? Are easier things always wrong..?
At our alma mater National Defence Academy, our every day prayer went like this. ‘O Lord…help us to choose the Harder Right over the Easier Wrong….’
Ask any good student and he will tell you that to get good grades at the board examinations, students have to slog hard…study day and night. Along with the students, parents and teachers have to work equally hard to guide the students in getting good grades.
However, the easier way for some students/parents could be to relax the whole year…copy in the exams to get good grades. Another easy way could be to get a leaked question paper before the exams or rig the evaluators/ officials to achieve good results!
In today’s competitive world, clearing the series of examinations/ interviews for qualifying competitive examinations like Civil Services, APSC etc would entail years of preparation, undergoing tough & expensive tuition courses and maybe many attempts at the examinations.
However, the easier way could be to use a Minister’s recommendations or pay some ‘management fees’ to the right people to qualify easily (…remember Madhya Pradesh’s VYAPAM Scam)!
Any farmer, businessmen, entrepreneur will testify with own experience that doing well and making money honestly involves lot of hard work, sacrifice and years of dedication. Even after years of hard work and toil only a lucky few have become rich and successful.
Similarly, any successful athlete will vouch that it requires years of training, discipline and sweat to get a podium position. Unless of course the athlete resorts to the easier method of boosting his performance by using steroids or stimulant drugs.
Even in government service, everyone is in a queue and has to put in many years of dedicated service to reach the top post.
In real life, there are no escalators to success…only steps…to be climbed one by one!!
If anyone becomes rich overnight, it is likely that he or she has pilfered somebody else’s money. On very rare occasions, few very lucky persons gets rich by winning a lottery…However, it appears that in this world many people have frequently won million dollar lotteries that also many times in their careers..!!
Choosing the harder right involves steely resolve and high integrity. In the long run achieving success through honest means, without taking shortcuts and cheating, the satisfaction and recognition is unmatched.
Historically, every society or nation that has done well have nurtured these fundamental values like honesty, integrity, discipline, hard work etc. Almost all these societies have chosen the harder right over the easier wrong!
Do we also want to choose the harder right? (The contributor is retired Group Captain, Indian Air Force)
