On the left-hand side of the approach road to IIM, Lucknow (India), I spotted one signpost as put up by the Institute exhibiting a quote from the sayings of Albert Einstein, “Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value”. I failed to instantly correlate between the reasons for what students often aspire a degree from a premier Business School like this and the statement of intent for its alumni as the quote purports.
I pondered over this for days together. I went down my memory lane. The earliest incident of life that one can recollect is the point from where one can be said to have started living one’s own life. I made a deeper analysis of my value system as it behaved from that point of life as well as those of others that they shared with me.
I realized that there are certain things if we succeed in getting them in life, living becomes a rewarding experience. However, all of them are not valued all the times. The ones valued depend on the stage of one’s existence in life.
As a child, one normally remains absorbed in its own world. However, it bothers a child if the food is delayed when hungry or it does not get a proper environment to rest, sleep and recreate when restive or it has to face a punishment when failed to behave compliantly. This makes it to slowly start valuing those factors of life, which would help it to gain more and more independence from these. This phase of one’s life may be labeled as one’s physical state of existence.
However, more the independence one gains in one’s physical state of existence, more the loneliness one feels in life. To get rid of this, one then values building relationship and initiates steps to include others in one’s life and gets included in others’ lives. The scriptures cite six types of inclusion relations that give life the needed balance during this phase of one’s existence. One may like to be a master to a pet, be a servant to some master, be and win a friend, secure a...