Choose ideals wisely

 “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”- Theodore Roosevelt

So, who are your ideals? What do you see while choosing ideals? According to me ideals are those whose life inspires us, whose works motivates us a lot, whom we want to follow, and, on whose footsteps, we want to walk upon. My two concerns or major questions in this blog are: Who should be our ideals ideally? And are our ideals limited to only glamourize our social media? I don’t want to give any advice; I just want to emphasize on the vitality of choosing the right ideals or the right heroes of our lives.

When does our journey of choosing an ideal start? I think it starts early from our childhood. When we start growing and understand the world then we find our ideals in our schools, colleges, on playgrounds. You would’ve often said to your friends that “Mr. X or Ms. Y teaches so well, I am fan of his/her way of teaching, I want to be like them.” If you get in touch with your seniors who are exceptionally well in academics and in co-curricular activities, then they become your ideals. We want to follow them, and the same thing happens when we prepare for competitive exams. We always make mistakes in choosing ideals there, we never do introspection. We only see their academic excellence and their fascinating ranks. But here we should ask ourselves a few practical questions like can we literally follow them, or do we have qualities like them. If the answer is no, then please don’t follow because they can’t be your ideals, their routines can’t give you success and by imitating their personalities you could never get success. If you try to follow them then you could never get desired results because you are different, you’ve your own capabilities and strengths. If you have dreams of enrolling in IIMs, IITs and you’re on the path of toppers then eventually the results will be opposite what those toppers elucidates because what suits them doesn’t mean will suit you. That’s why choosing the right ideals at the right time or deciding your own trajectory is indispensable.

Choose ideals after self-analysis of yourself, with whom you personally feel connected, with whom your situations match, whose struggles are like you, who have faced hard days with grit, whose failures are like you and who inspires you a lot. What Theodore Roosevelt said, “I’ve envied those great people who led difficult lives but led them well.” Find those people in the world who led difficult lives and have given us the way to lead that life with a smile. Make such people your ideals and gravitate their energy into you, they would be your true ideals, they would be your real heroes.

My second concern is that do we follow our ideals honestly if we have one? We have all been witnessing this on social media that myriad posts, quotes, invoking lines of many great personalities are being shared, posted but do our work finish there only? We have ideals, but we don’t follow them truthfully, we don’t learn ethically from their teachings. It’s like infatuation, we just get triggered by their motivating quotes and promise to ourselves we will apply that in our lives, but eventually we fail in following that. Then we get depressed and feel guilty that “I am unable to implement those lessons in my life.”

Here I’d like to say two things: if you really like someone, admire someone, their teachings motivate you, their life inspires you and if they are your ideals then there’s no need to imitate them, don’t try to be like them. Just try to encompass their teachings in your life and if it doesn’t suit you then drop it. There’s no rule to follow someone or have an ideal. If you admire someone it’s alright, it doesn’t mean that you’d have to make them your ideals. It’s not necessary which principles have worked for them will work for you. Don’t rush to make ideals, just make your own rules, your experiences, learnings, and failures will get you success not someone else’s. Don’t focus on just following, focus more on implementing. You can only learn from their lives, motivate yourself but can only reach your destination by being authentic and having your own path.

Devvardhan Chauhan

3rd Year ECE