JANUARY 5 ― There’s a story told by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek about a guy who was seeking advice from a guru.
The guru told this man, “Look, you have two choices. One, you can live a life of meaning, compassion and service to your community or, two, you can live the fast life of money, career and success.”
The man went away.
A few weeks later they met again and the guru asked him which path he chose. The man replied, “Master, I thought about your advice and I really wanted to take the path of service and care for people.”
The guru asked, so what happened? Why didn’t you choose that path?
The man replied, “Because I was, uh, too busy chasing money, buying cars, working my way up the corporate ladder, etc.”
Swept away?
The above story illustrates the condition many of us are in, doesn’t it? In some domains of life, we live as though we’re forced into things, we’re “swept away” by the torrent of demands, we’re just going through the motions, all the while talking as if these are choices we’ve made or thought hard about.
I’ve worked in the education sector for almost two decades and you see this all the time.
Students who are in a Business course just because their parents pushed them into it, thereby having little or no clue what or why they’re really studying.
But ask them about what they really want to learn and the replies are akin to, let me finish this course first then I’ll think about it.
Likewise, with lecturers spending weeks and months writing papers not because they’re passionate or serious about a particular topic but because, hey, there’s a KPI to be met at the end of the year and this means they should churn out half a dozen papers to meet the target.
And yet, apart from some arbitrary corporate number given by the top, why do I really want to do this research or write this paper about, say, educational psychology among B40 high-school students in Johor Baru? Do I truly care about this discipline, this field, the students?
Or take the average corporate executive who works 10 to 12 hours daily because, well, everybody else is doing it and isn’t making more and more money important?
Don’t get me wrong. Nobody is saying these pursuits are bad in themselves. However, just like the case of the dude and his guru, often we get caught up in activities and hustle-bustle to the point where our intentionality gets lost.
What is intentionality anyway?
Intentionality is deciding to visit Newcastle in order to see and study Hadrian’s Wall first-hand compared to, well, flying to the UK because I’ve got a few thousand dollars to blow and isn’t London very Instagrammable?
Intentionality is the difference between going to the gym because my plan is to lose seven kilos within a month hence I’m going to do specific sets of weights and cardio three days a week versus joining a gym just because Celebrity Fitness is giving a 20 per cent discount if you join in January.
Intentionality is what separates reading a hundred papers about economic growth and interviewing a dozen business leaders with the clear objective of presenting a fiscal policy plan to the Ministry of Economy within six months and, say, going around looking for a research team to join because, oh, it’s close to the end of the year I have to hit my Scopus index submission target.
I hope it’s clear that the former items in the above examples demonstrate a lot more purpose and focus in said activities, resulting in greater motivation.
I also want to emphasise (again and again) that there’s nothing wrong with the latter components mentioned above. In fact, sometimes one learns by going along with what others are doing and so on.
Nevertheless, having some intentionality in the key domains of our lives can’t hurt and, in many cases, can prevent a lot of wastage and meaninglessness in life.
Living intentionally
God knows I’m no guru, but I hope the following questions help us rethink our trajectories this year (or even course-correct if we need to):
Why did I choose this course or job or person or trip or project or what-not? Have I thought hard about it? Honestly, what do I hope to achieve and do these make sense?
What alternatives do I have this year? What are the benefits and costs of switching course?
What do I truly madly deeply want out of life? Why?
Happy new year, everybody.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
