Autonomous Adult

Autonomous Adult

           The formal educational system and family upbringing prepare a person to become an autonomous adult , capable of discharging one’s own responsibilities and to seek happiness without injuring/ harming others

Look around us. Is it happening?

People are autonomous adults for namesake only. Many are not ready to carry out any clear thinking. Always they are in a clouded state.

There is no end to which a person nowadays will go for hurting others to achieve one’s goal. The idea that one day” I may be at the receiving end” is not there in mind.

When they are young and have physical power, they think that it is going to continue in the same way always. Times change, eyesight dims, steps falter.

We also spend a lot of time on jealousy about others and also trying to maintain a facade of a false pride and appearances of grandness.

Let us see the main characteristics of an autonomous adult.

1.       Learning attitude.

2.     Humility

3.     Helping nature

4.     Having consideration for others & not hurting

5.     Taking responsibility in tough situations and not despairing about it

6.     Being happy in seeing others grow.

7.     Directing one self and others to worthwhile purposes/ activity.

8.     Clear thinking.

9.     Not wasting resources.

10.  Being balanced in enjoyment and fulfilling ones desires.

Whether these will come from outside the person or inside, I don’t know. But these are required, and to be developed.

Let us try ourselves first, to be autonomous adults.         

Necessity for a guide- all walks of life

Human Intelligence can absorb and make use of any amount of knowledge. There is no doubt.

                   This is evident from the vast strides we have made through applied science. These create a feeling that since applied knowledge is flawlessly serving millions of people, an individual is worthless as regards his/her knowledge. (Internet, mobile phone etc).Nothing could be more far from truth.

                   Really, in order to achieve advancement of society and to also obtain individual well being and happiness, we need other individuals to help us guide us achieve what we want.

                   Our birth circumstances and the formal education we acquire, never aid us to prepare ourselves to meet life and also our job requirement.

                   We understand things from our own experience. Be it spiritual or professional.

                   Hence we all require people, who in the light of their own personal experience can guide us to find our own truth.

                   This, then needs a receptive attitude, the right ambience and also a person who is willing to guide you, and already possesses personal experience in the line of activity we aspire to take-up.

                   Good theory requires good practice and vice-versa.

                   In the end, we replicate the expertise in ourselves. It is unimaginable that any person can claim an automatic right to knowledge/(as applied) at the stage of birth.

Nothing can substitute personal experience.

                   Hence we can acquire a lifetime of applied knowledge by approaching the wise. Thus the cliché of a “GURU”, the guide who has already crossed your current stage and has the ability ,knowledge and generosity to help you cross the chasm of ignorance.

                   The same guide cannot always guide you. You may need different guides for different subjects. We have to be grateful to them. We should also become guides later.

                   However as Mark McCormack says” gratitude is the least felt of all human emotions”. I learnt this first from his book “What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School”. Later I validated it from my own personal experience of observing people being ungrateful.

                   Let us all remember that life goes on only because there are many”Generous Giver” Guides. Let us salute them. Let us try to be worthy of them.