Have we lost our way?

Whenever I stop and look around myself I wonder what kind of lives we are living! We are so busy with no time to think whether we are having a good meal or spending quality time or even doing a worthwhile job. Everywhere people mundanely are going through the motions of doing their job, shopping till they are tired, watch movie till you are bored, busy with the gadgets until your body complains, driving in a hurry to reach somewhere, engrossed in television or whatever else. I see two primary motivations for all that we do– one we have no option but have to do it; like our jobs, the other is to do anything that will keep us away from doing the first at least for a short period. 


Should we be wondering why it is this way? Well, for one thing I have come to realize that we are this way because we do not seem to know - What we want in life!

That is blasphemous! How could one say that?

It is a perception that needs elaboration -

There was a time when I considered myself as a part of the great human force manoeuvring the global economic machine. It was this machine which was keeping mankind alive and giving the sole purpose to exist – one of continuous economic growth leading to prosperity and abundance. Imagine mankind without all the technological growth driven by the economic machine, we would be primitive and insignificant as a species on this planet. Today we are the masters of this planet and have so much scientific and technological know-how that we can replicate many things created by nature.

The conquering of scale has been the tipping point in our technological evolution. This has been achieved through numerous institutional frameworks that form the pillars of modern human society. These institutions foster and provide a continuous stream of much needed workforce to keep the economic machine chugging.

We got to be proud of being part of such a phenomenal structure and society!

Indeed I was proud of being part of this great machine until one day I stopped to wonder what is going on and got to see the whole thing with a different perception.

The evolution of mankind has primarily been a progressive development of the intellect. What we are today as a species is primarily because of the superior intellect and our ability to think. Now, when I stopped to check on how much of my belief of the global economic machine was a result of my own thinking – I realized it was borrowed from that depicted through media, influential individuals or powerful organizations and institutions! 

It was time to think and verify if my belief was right - As an individual, part of the global human force, am I here to just keep the economic machine chugging at all costs; even if I have to expend my life doing  monotonous and uninteresting work? That certainly didn’t seem right, there got to be something more than that I wanted to accomplish at the end of the day. I reviewed all my prevailing goals and dreams - I wanted to own a house, buy the best car in town, visit exotic places, good bank balance and the list went on endlessly. I was on a reasonably good path of getting to all the line items in the list.

Now I wondered if that addressed the question of - what I want to ‘Accomplish’?
The answer was an affirmative ‘Yes’. Getting your desires fulfilled is certainly an accomplishment!

After some introspection as good as it appeared none of my desires would be fulfilling! I got to be doing something more impactful to the world around me rather than just fulfilling my desires. Strangely, some of those desires seemed petty.

Moreover, the global economic machine with all its promises has not solved the fundamental problem of poverty and inequality. On the contrary it has widened the gap between the haves and have-nots and the model is based on the principle of creating scarcity to fuel economic growth.

Once the new perception dawned many things that used to be the norm started appearing pointless. Each one should question the pointlessness in everything we do. In its absence we seem to be going down the wrong path of evolution. In the context of the global human force driving the economic machine the human intellect has taken a back seat and one is to perform their role even at the cost of losing the ability to think.

Each one of us is unique and has an important purpose to fulfill during the course of their life and not compromise that unique destiny for all the money in the world.

It is probably time for mankind to chart the course of its evolutionary path – should it be driven by the development of the intellect or should be based on mechanization of human potential to drive the giant economic machine!

Each one of us has an opportunity to make our choice to drive the human evolution in the direction we ought to go.