THE ART OF LIVING YOUR LIFE ON BETTER TERMS
>- Latch on to lesser opportunities to avoid vicious cycles in life!Myriad are the problems facing humanity and with every advancements in the society, we seem to be plagued by problems of different dimensions that sap our motivation and make us feel desperate and depressed. Problems – and humanity's attempt to solve them – have been there from times immemorial! So, instead of blaming "modern developments" or "attitude problems of current generation", we will all benefit by attempting to lead our lives purposefully by attempting to solve the issues by appropriate means.
One of the greatest problems of modern living is "debt crisis." While debt does make its appearance in one form or the other in the lives of most people, the normal, well-planned individual often deals with it well, or sometimes even benefits out of it - like for example, a person who has raised a loan to fund children's education, or housing needs of the family – often 'gains' by debt or rather the correct handling of the debt facility in his/ her life. Debt becomes a crisis only when you borrow more than you can comfortably repay, and the interest one day exceeds your capacity to repay even that – making it a vicious cycle.
It is the boundless greed that masquerades as "motivation for improvement" or "positive achievement ambition" that is often at the root of the debt problem at least for majority of the people belonging to Generation X(excluding those who are in debt due to situations that are really beyond their control – like familial obligations, or "hand-of-God situations" – like sudden medical emergencies that are not covered by insurance).
Speaking from experience, I have seen some
young professionals who have borrowed money to fund their educational expenses abroad, return to their homelands, and then refuse to take up jobs that are below "certain levels they have in mind" – arguing that 'though this is okay, I am not taking it; with the salary they give, I won’t be able to pay off my debt and still have a good life-style that I have in my mind; I am waiting for the right offer to come.' Initially things do look good – the parents are tolerant and sometimes even proud about this – because it is partly their own greed that has played out in the form of the ambitious youngster in the family, and everyone plays along for a while. If the lucky youngster lands up in a job "as per minimum expectations" and manages to cruise smoothly along the highway of success as many people do, things go well….But, for the sizeable majority who are in this category – the "right job at the desired level" does not materialize initially, and what is worse…with passage of time, they don't get the offers for even earlier level jobs.
Some who do get such offers enter the job with a negative mindset – 'I am only a bird of paradise; No one recognized my potential these 2 years and just to manage the expenses I am getting into this; I am going to switch to a better paying job at the earliest'. This does show in their attitude/ performance at work – and they make the crucial mistake of earning bad reviews – without understanding that the vast ocean of professional world is highly interconnected now-a-days, and if your professional reputation is spoilt somewhere due to your obvious mistakes/ attitude issues – you are more widely discussed and reported than you ever imagine! So, if at this stage they lose their job (in most cases, they don’t lose the job; rather the company diplomatically offers them a position that these people consider lower than their potential and they promptly resign – saving the company the problem of having to dismiss them!), they are in for a trouble – without even realizing it.
Click here to read more Part 2 | Part 3 Article by Pandit R DAKSHINAMOORTHI