Want to explore your potential? Ride on that dissatisfaction
If you are diligently working to improve one aspect that you are dissatisfied with go on. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH
“The reasonable person adapts him or herself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to him or herself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable person.”- George Bernard Shaw
When a person is content with the way things are, he or she is considered reasonable. However, when a person is dissatisfied with the status quo and endeavours to change it, we consider this restless behaviour.
It unsettles us and forces us to disrupt life as we know it in one or more aspects. We find this to be unreasonable behaviour.
If you were brought up like I was, you were taught to be reasonable about life. The virtues of being satisfied with what you had were extoled on you on a regular basis.
While this may seem like reasonable advice, and I truly believe that everyone who had a hand in shaping my formative years meant the very best for me, I believe that the word “satisfaction” was used interchangeably with the word “gratitude”.
While I was, and still am grateful to each and every one of them, I was far from satisfied. I wanted everything I didn’t have.
This ranged from the well pressed uniform my desk-mate wore to carefully packed recess snacks to the fact that his father would be eagerly waiting from him next to a shiny luxury car at the end of the school day while I was the rather disheveled child without a snack-box to share with others and trekking back home in the hot sun at the end of the school day.
I am cognisant of the commandment that forbids coveting my neighbour’s possessions and as a parent now, realise how ungrateful a child can be seem during those early years in life.
I bite my tongue before responding whenever my children come home with a request for yet another exciting item that a class-mate has. The first thought that comes to my mind is that the little one is dissatisfied and that that’s a bad thing. It is not.
History has a rather sarcastic way of repeating itself especially when you are part of that history. What I really feel is that the child is being ungrateful for all the his/she already has and yes, that is not good.
Gratitude keeps us connected to our source of supply. We must make a conscious effort to be grateful.
Of all my childhood lessons, remaining satisfied with life in the name of being reasonable is one of those I respectfully reserve the right to challenge.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being dissatisfied. On the contrary, a lot of good can and usually is achieved by dissatisfied minds.
Life as we know it today is made infinitely better because some scientific and artistic minds were dissatisfied for long enough to invent and continually refine the creation of all the inventions that enable us to do more, live better and live longer.
The truth is that the genius inventors to whom we will forever be indebted for the wonderful conveniences that we enjoy today were dissatisfied with the life that was passed on to them – so they improved upon it.
This is not a licence to become unreasonable about all situations. If, however, you are diligently working to improve one aspect that you are dissatisfied with, go on; be “unreasonable”. Those who think this of you will very likely follow you in the long run.
What are you deemed unreasonable about; a loving relationship, cohesive family, peace of mind, financial independence and so on?
Well, maybe you just need to be more realistic and hang on to the demeaning relationship, get a newer model of the TukTuk instead of the BMW that you cannot stop thinking about and be happy with yet another reasonable salary increase based on market rates… if you can.
When you confine your ambition this way, I mean; within pre-determined boundary of “reason”, you limit yourself. Those boundaries are not real.
They’re merely the reflections of a set of beliefs that you’ve been carrying around with you all of your life because other people who were undoubtedly well-meaning told you so.
I encourage you to be unrealistic when it comes to the life that you want for yourself. A 10 per cent improvement may be impressive enough for some.
Congratulate them and be genuinely happy for them. If however it if isn’t satisfying for you, go on; be unrealistic and really S-T-R-E-T-C-H yourself for the quantum improvement leap that you want.
