We generally are judged by the results we achieve and nobody really cares for the process we’ve gone through to get to a stage where we could achieve said result. The point which I want to emphasize in this article is what actually is important for us, the result or the process, in the long run.
A result is something that motivates us to go for a task. There are so many competitions going around and we decide to participate in them after having a glance at the prizes. With better prizes, the number of participants increases.
A college is selected by the kind of opportunities it might provide, a job is selected by the kind of pay and perks it provides and we end up having properties, as investments, making our financial case stronger. So clearly, we’re being selective, we’re choosing paths which probably would get us to a better place. To be honest, I believe there’s nothing wrong in thinking ahead of ourselves and securing a good future.
But my point is, is it a good idea to sacrifice our present in order to possibly have a good future? Is the path to achieving results important or not?
Results supposedly indicate how well we have been doing a particular task. It is a one day, one hour or a one-minute event which tells us the quality of work we were doing so far. I particularly am not a big fan of this idea.
A low grade in an exam doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t have a good enough idea of the course. Inability to perform well on a particular day doesn’t mean that the person hasn’t been preparing well, and finally, not having great achievements doesn’t mean that the person hasn’t been doing some good work. So, are results the best parameter to judge an activity? If not then why blindly follow paths which are wrong and not the ones which might make us happy?
I believe that it is the process which actually makes us learn rather than the desire to achieve great results. Yes, there’s no harm in wanting to achieve greatness, but it should not be the case where we choose wrong paths or the so-called shortcuts.
I was a part of my undergraduate college robotics team. We won a few important competitions. More than the winning moments, I cherish the process of building the robot. That was a time where I learned a lot of life lessons and gained the desire to continuously improve. Life is a collection of many such short and long processes.
Results are not always in our hands but the quality of effort we put in, our approach and our ability to improve and better ourselves is what makes us enjoy life.
To conclude, there’s nothing wrong with thinking ahead of ourselves but we must not compromise on the quality of paths we choose. The journey gives us life lessons which cannot be yielded from an event only a few minutes or a few hours long.
