Operation 2030: Mankind Has Just 5 Years — Wake Up and Rush!

On this occasion, I don't find anything more apt than to use a quote from the book itself. Acharya ji, with your permission, if I may:

"Choose the right option, make the right decision, fight the right battle. And now it doesn't matter whether you win or not because you are already victorious."

This is not just a quote. It's a compass, and it comes from a very deep point of wisdom — a point that asks us to turn inward, to reflect, to question, and to understand. This is a book that is meant not just to be read, but to be decoded — a book that dares us to ask: What if we have been following a wrong version of success all along? My friends, the wait is now finally over. The code is about to be revealed. I would now like to request Acharya ji to please come on stage for the official unveiling ceremony. May I also invite the two little torchbearers, Ribhu and Advik, to join Acharya ji on the stage for this event? Go ahead, little kids.

So, as you guys have been taught — go ahead, slowly, slowly. Okay.

Guys, help them with a huge round of applause, please. Presenting to you: “Decoding Coding Success.”

Thanks very much, dear Ribhu and Advik. You both can take your seats now. Everyone, a book can offer wisdom, but when the one who lives that wisdom every day is in front of us, then the words can have an entirely different meaning. So, we would like to invite Acharya ji to guide us — all of us — and shed light on the questions of our inquisitive students.

Acharya Prashant: Thank you, everybody. Thank you to the school management for having me here. And it's always an added layer of pleasure to be talking to students — and students in uniforms. Everybody likes to feel young, but I genuinely feel at this moment, it was not too long back that I was on the same seats. And that period, that phase, contributed a lot to my life and towards bringing me where I am. So I want to kind of repay the debt.

Let me see what kind of meaning, what kind of richness, we can add to this afternoon together. Right? Let us see. But what's certain is — your presence has charged me up. Thank you so much.

We'll keep it conversational. Though the party already has something in mind, and to some extent the theme has also been set — “Operation 2030” — still, it's going to be a to-and-fro thing. It's structured, but only partly so. We'll have follow-ups, and we'll also have scope even for rebuttals, right? So, let's start.

Questioner: Good afternoon sir. I am Guni, and I was very curious about the "Operation 2030" written behind you. So I wanted to ask: what is it, and why is it important?

Acharya Prashant: There are many ways I can talk about this thing, but it just struck me — in fact, just a minute back — that I should tell you a story. Probably that's one of the most interesting ways, always, to communicate what one has to. Right? Would you want to hear it in the form of a story or in the form of a lecture?

Listeners: Story.

Acharya Prashant: All right, please sit. So, there has been mankind — Homo sapiens, right? Homo sapiens — that's you and me, that's each one of us. And for the sake of brevity, we'll call this mankind “man.” But “man” does not refer to a particular gender. “Man” refers to Homo sapiens — mankind — which is all of us.

So there's this man. And this man is an immortal being, because we are not talking of a particular man; we are talking of mankind itself. People may come and people may go, but people remain. Right? So, there is this fellow in 1750 — “Man, 1750” — and he's facing all kinds of material troubles possible. The planet is Earth, and he does not have enough to eat. He does not understand most of the diseases that plague him. There is not enough education. There is not enough material or industrial production — all kinds of problems that there can be. And he feels like a failure, a loser.

"What have I done? I've been existing on this planet for 6 to 7 million years," says Man. "And the year right now is 1750." The Industrial Revolution has not yet begun — 1750.

And he says, "I've been here for 7 million years. And I've been out of the jungle for 10,000 years — a long time, a really long time. And yet look at me — I'm such a loser, I have nothing, I don't have good food to eat. My kids, they don't stay alive. Women die during childbirth. The average longevity is so poor. In parts of the world, it is just 20 years, 25 years. People don't survive on an average beyond that."

"There are all kinds of discrimination. We do not understand physical phenomena. We do not know what's going on in the universe. There's not much progress in science, arts, mathematics, or any aspects of human activity. I do not know what's going on." And then he says, "I need to succeed. I can't continue like this. I can't continue as a failure, as a loser," he says. "I need success. What do I need? Success."

And he says, "What's defeating me is nature. I do not know where these microorganisms come from — the bacteria, the viruses — they infect me, they bring me down. I know nothing about the functioning of our environment, our atmosphere. I do not know where to get energy from." "Even if I know that certain goods are to be produced and those goods bring me happiness or comfort or convenience, still I do not have enough means, enough energy to extract those goods and then send them into the production line, all of that requires energy. I don’t have that."

So he says, "It has to be a war against nature, because nature is what oppresses me. I’m embarking on a conquest of nature." The war starts — though the war had actually started long before 1750 — but 1750 is when we can officially announce it, because now comes what we now know as the Industrial Revolution.

And what do we have? We have industries. And to run industries, you require energy. Where did energy first of all come from? We know of the steam engine. But water doesn’t turn into steam on its own. What does it need? How did the early steam engines operate? They needed coal. So you started digging out coal — Mining. And that was all fine.

The steam engine just changed the way man lived — the entire trajectory of civilization. A lot of curves, if you look at them, take an inflection around 1750. Historical curves — for example, the population of the world. The population of the world suddenly starts increasing because now there is more to be consumed. More food can be produced and transported. Medicines can be produced. More research can be done. Industrial activity brought all kinds of apparent welfare. That's 1750, right?

And man continued on that journey. Man said, "Now, after so many million years, I’m finally getting to succeed. I’m finally getting to succeed." And he continues on this mission — success. Initially, it was coal. And then he found another source of energy, because energy had been his constraint, his limit, his bottleneck.

What were the traditional sources of energy before the Industrial Revolution?

Listener: Muscular energy.

Acharya Prashant: Muscular energy — to begin with, your own muscles. And when you applied some wit, then the muscular energy of?

Listener: Animals — cattle, other domesticated animals — that was the only kind of energy that was available to you. And that kept you back. And now suddenly, a treasure had been unlocked. Hint: what we thought had been unlocked would turn out to be a Pandora’s box a little later. But for now, let’s just call it treasure.

So, starting with coal, we used coal to discover a more potent source of energy. What was it? And had we not used coal, we couldn’t have come to that other source of energy. What was it? Oil and gas. The kind of exploration and deep digging and mining it requires for oil to be extracted would not have been possible without coal. Coal led to oil and gas.

Now man feels, “I’m even more successful,” because now there is more energy and, consequently, more prosperity. More can be done. More goods can be manufactured.” And that’s what we call prosperity, right? And when there is prosperity, we loosely translate that into happiness. So coal and then oil and gas — got translated into happiness. The man started feeling more puffed up: “I’m happy. I am successful. I’m the conqueror of nature. I’m the ruler of the world.”

And after oil and gas, what came next very recently?

Listener: Electricity.

Acharya Prashant: No. As a source of energy.

Listener: Solar Energy.

Acharya Prashant: Yes — then came nuclear. And now you have all kinds of green energies, right? So that’s the story. And man has been feeling more and more successful, and more and more emboldened to extract energy from the planet and use it to do any kind of stuff that he pleases — that he chooses to do.

But what has been the other side of the story? And wonderfully enough, this story is very parallel, very analogous, to what you have here: “Decoding Success.” And if you can understand the story of this man, you’ll get a fair bit of idea what kind of success you want in your life — because you are standing at a very critical juncture of your studies, life, and decisions.

In 1750, the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere was 270 ppm. PPM is?

Listeners: Parts per million.

Acharya Prashant: Parts per million — 270 ppm. And from there, it started increasing initially at a slow rate, very slow rate — to the extent that even when we came to the 20th century, to the turn of the 20th century, the year 1900, the ppm levels were no more than 300. So that was not much of an increase. You could say from 1750 to 1900 — just around 30 ppm. In fact, till 1870 or 1880, it was barely 280 ppm.

And then it rose. Rose, rose. The two World Wars came. It kept rising gradually. And then we come to 1950. This is after the World War II destruction. The post-World War II wreck had to be cleared. There was massive destruction. You know of that, right? It had to be cleared. And there was a wave of reconstruction. Also, we had decided not to fight with that kind of intensity and ruthlessness, and the United Nations had been set up. So there was relative peace compared to the first half of the last century.

We are in 1950, and that’s when the real explosion — in both material prosperity and per capita income and ppm levels — starts happening. We start claiming we are getting more and more successful, and that is also the time when this ppm curve just explodes. Instead of rising gradually and linearly, it takes an exponential turn — so much so that every decade after 1950, the ppm levels kept increasing till around the year 2000 by 10 ppm. Every decade, 10 ppm.

And after the year 2000, which is when we entered this century, the rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been more than 10 ppm — more than 10 parts per million. If you look at the curves of the average temperature of Earth and the curve of the atmospheric CO₂ levels, you would feel you are looking at the same curve. It’s two worms lying one upon the other. There is not just a correlation, there is a direct causation. The more you increase CO₂, the more the atmospheric temperature rises. Right? But man was successful, and man was achieving more and more success.

However, this century opens, and there are already voices — sane voices — warning against an impending catastrophe. A catastrophe that the younger generations — guys like you — are going to face the brunt of.

The problem is: those who hold money, those who accumulate capital, and those who are at the helm of power are usually the older folks. While those who will be left to bear the consequences will be people like you — and these two young men. So, there was a huge clamor, right?

Have you heard of the Earth Summit? — Earth Summit. When was it?

Listener: 1992.

Acharya Prashant: 1992. All this is covered in the environmental sciences syllabus, right?

Listener: In geography.

Acharya Prashant: In geography. Okay. Good. Wonderful. We didn’t have that. So, at least some progress is there. So, after that, there was United Nations activity, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came about. And it is under this that you have this Conference of Parties, which is the highest decision-making unit under the UNFCCC, which meets every year. Right? This year it's the meeting. Where is it meeting? Where is the COP this year?

Listeners: Brazil.

Acharya Prashant: Wonderful. So, the COP in 2015 was a landmark one — very remarkable. Why?

Listeners: SDGs were…

Acharya Prashant: The Paris Agreement. The national deliverables. And the Paris Agreement came about for a very, very specific reason. The reason was that we were seeing a temperature rise, and there was enough scientific evidence that if the average global temperatures exceed 1.5°C, then there is going to be a massive problem. Why a massive problem? Because somewhere between 1.5°C and 2°C, something called feedback loops get activated. You understand feedback loops? These are self-sustaining, self-reinforcing climatic phenomena. And once they get activated, they cannot be stopped. They are irreversible.

Which means that even if you now go to a net zero state — which is, you do not add any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere — yet carbon dioxide would keep getting added to the atmosphere on its own, even without any human intervention.

So that’s the reason there was so much significance attached to this figure of 1.5°. It does not pop up randomly from somewhere. The figure 1.5°C has a solid scientific basis. So the COP 21 in 2015 — Paris — it said, “We want to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C.” And because it was not clear when exactly the feedback cycles get activated, it was said, “Fine, at max we can tolerate 2°C,” because the loops get activated between 1.5° and 2°. So we said, “Fine, maybe 2° is tolerable. 1.5° is what we want.”

Because even at 1.5°, it is not certain that you’ll be able to totally prevent the loops from getting activated. You could say, from getting switched on — like a chain reaction, like a radioactive fissile nuclear reaction. It’s not certain, but there is a probability that 1.5° is when it all begins. So let’s stop it before that — at max 2°. At max, 2°.

So, 2015 — we said — was a landmark. And in 2015, we set targets as a planet. All the countries of the Earth — we set a target. We said, “By 2030” Is that the number you find here? 2030. Yeah.

So we said, “By 2030, if we want to contain the temperature rise to 1.5°, then we’ll have to bring down our carbon emissions — the global carbon emissions of the entire planet — by 43% compared to the 2019 levels.” If you want to keep the temperature rise to just 1.5° above the pre-industrial levels, then you will have to limit the carbon emission by decreasing it by 43% below 2019 levels.

Why 2019 levels? Because after that, you had the epidemic — the COVID pandemic was there — so the carbon levels, you could say, were kind of artificially down in 2020. So we took 2019 as the benchmark, and we said, “Compared to 2019, we want to bring it down by 43%.” And even if we bring it down by 43%, the best that we can get is just a 1.5° rise. Just a 1.5° rise.

Why do we need to have this Operation 2030, then? Because this is 2025 — and that 1.5° barrier has already been breached. We said we do not want to exceed 1.5° ever. We said we do not want to exceed 1.5° even a hundred years from now. Otherwise, something unstoppable will be set into motion. And that has already happened this particular year. We have exceeded 1.5° global temperature rise. In fact, there is some evidence that it has already gone up to the level of 1.6°, 1.7°. And this is not 2030 — this is 2025. You get this?

When the COP was being held at Paris, three pathways emerged. Three pathways emerged. The first was the green pathway — though it cannot be, it should not be honestly called “green,” but it was called green. It was the pathway of limiting carbon emissions to the extent that you do not get more than 1.5° rise.

The second was the yellow pathway. You said, if you move along this one, then you will get a rise of 2° centigrade, and 2° centigrade ensures that you will have cataclysmic feedback cycles. And then there was the red pathway. The red pathway said, if you take this particular path, then the temperature rise you will get will definitely be more than 3°. And how much more than 3°, we cannot say. That’s the scary part — definitely more than 3°, so the bottom line is ensured. But beyond that, we do not know.

Because beyond that, what will we have? Unstoppable feedback cycles. And we do not know the extent to which they will explode — the extent to which they will amplify, intensify on their own. It could be 5°, it could even be 7°. We just do not know. And as of today, we are on the red track. Neither green nor yellow — we are on the red track. We are on the red track. Do you understand this?

The global emissions — when we said we are taking 2019 as the base, as the standard to compare the coming years with — the global base was 58 gigatons equivalent of carbon dioxide. The green path would have meant reducing it to 33 gigatons of carbon dioxide. The yellow path: 39 gigatons.

Currently, the way we are moving, we will be able to have no reduction at all. Zero reduction. And that’s not funny — especially for those who are going to live through it. All those with grey hair are in some sense going to be lucky. They won’t be there to experience the worst of it.

Instead of a reduction — if we started from a point of 58 gigatons in 2019 — where do you think we stand in 2025? 2019: 58. We said, by 2030 we want to go to 33. From 58, we wanted to go to 33 over a course of 11 years. Right? We are midway through. Where do you think we stand? We stand at a point little more than 58. Instead of reducing it to 33, we have gone on to increase it. And the worst part is — since the last 2-3 years, it’s increasing at an increasing rate. It’s accelerating.

Do you understand how success and that operation are linked?

Man wanted success — and this is what he has brought upon himself. Because according to him, success was about the conquest of nature, consumption, prosperity, and the subsequent sensual pleasure. He said, “If you can have that, then you can be called successful.”

But is that not the idea we all even today — have of success? The fellow has money — let’s call him successful. The fellow consumes a lot of energy — let’s call him successful. Would you want to know what the rich people of the world do when it comes to carbon emissions? We call them successful.

If we just project two pictures here — one of an ordinary-looking person, and one of a person driving an ultra-luxury car and you are asked to spot the successful one, what would be your first instinct? Which one is successful?

Listener: The one driving the luxury car.

Acharya Prashant: Okay. So we come to a more luxurious part of the story now — the richer part of the story. For us to survive — for us to just come to the point of 43% reduction that we have messaged for ourselves by 2030. The per capita annual CO₂-equivalent emission of any citizen of this planet should not exceed two tons. Two tons — that's the sustainable limit. What's the population of the planet?

Listener: 8 billion.

Acharya Prashant: 8-plus billion people, right? And these 8-plus billion people each should not be emitting more than two metric tons of CO₂ annually. That’s all. If you want this planet to survive, that’s all. How much do the richest 1% of this planet emit? Two tons is what is sustainable. But how much do the successful people emit? Come on. More than 10? More than 20? Oh, you underestimate success so much. Success is intoxication. You do not stop at 10 or 20. You want to just roll on.

I’m moving at the speed of light — they call Mr. Fahrenheit. That kind of speed you want to have. Why will you stop at 10, 20, 25?

Listeners: 100.

Acharya Prashant: That’s it. 100. And we are talking of the top 1% rich people. What if I make it to the top 0.1% — the ones who are really admired? The ones who make it to the Forbes 500 lists and the world’s top billionaires lists. The top 0.1%. How much do you think they emit?

Listeners: 1,000.

Acharya Prashant: 1,000. The scale is logarithmic. 1,000. Two tons is what is needed to keep the planet alive. And they emit 1,000 tons. And see how the curve just logarithmically declines:

Top 0.1 percentile: 1,000 tons

Top 1 percentile: 100 tons

Top 10 percentile: 50 tons or less than 50.

Bottom 50%: 5%

Only 5% of the total global carbon emissions come from the bottom 50% of the population. And that’s the reason why countries like India stand — still even today — below the 2-ton threshold. India’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions are 1.9 tons per person per annum. How much do you think it is for the EU? The EU is a little conscious place, so I’ll take you to the real culprits a little later. Yeah, the EU is 7.

India is 1.9 tons. 2 tons is the sustainable limit. And 2 tons is sustainable only with respect to 2030 — when it comes to having net zero emissions. And that was the next thing that the Paris Agreement asked for: by 2050 — net zero.

Net zero is not zero. Net zero means you have to absorb as much as you emit. So you can have nonzero emissions — you can have some emissions — but you also need to absorb them back. That’s called net zero.

So, for net zero, the per capita emissions must actually be cut down to 0.7 tons per person per annum. 0.7. That’s what you need for this planet to survive. We are not talking of some random, arbitrary, ambitious target here. This is the minimum that you need — if this planet is to live. Else we are going to have a wasteland with no life. So, the EU is 7 tons. US? Anybody? — 16. US: 16.

See, when you want to put your finger on the real culprits, they are not in the entire population of the US. Because even within the US, the income distribution is highly skewed. Even within the US, it is the rich ones that are responsible for the climate catastrophe. The GCC? — Saudi Arabia, UAE — the Gulf countries, the oil-producing countries? — 20-25.

Two tons is needed by 2030, and 0.7 by 2050. And there they are — 20 to 25 tons per person annually. And these are also some of the countries — the oil-producing countries — where the rate of reduction, where the governmental willingness and initiative to reduce the carbon emission, is found to be the lowest, the weakest. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico and now the US.

What kind of success is this? Let me give you a figure: The emissions by the top 1% of the global population were responsible for 1.3 million deaths in the last 10 years. Should we call it bloody success? Yes, we should, if we are to be honest. The emissions by the top 1% richest people of the world in the last decade were responsible for 1.3 million deaths. And those deaths happened mostly in the Global South countries like ours. Those deaths didn’t happen in their own countries.

Carbon emissions don’t respect national boundaries, do they? They don’t. So, somebody might emit — some really rich one might emit — in the Gulf, or in Russia, or in the US, or in China. But countries like India bear the consequences.

What would you want to say to such a rich person? He’s marinating in wealth, he’s rolling in dollars, and he won’t even want to know that he has caused these millions of deaths just through his extravagant lifestyle. But that extravagant lifestyle is not what we all crave for and take as the equivalent of success? Please tell me. We said bloody success — is that the success that we want? Because everything that you equate with money and prosperity today is carbon. And

Carbon means deaths. Carbon means exploitation. And carbon means more than exploitation — extinction.

Dozens of species are disappearing every day — for good, forever. Their extinction is attributed to climate change. You’re not just exploiting living beings, you are making them go extinct forever. If that is the definition of your success — “I’ll have more money to burn, I’ll consume more and more, I’ll live the high and fast life” — And we are not talking on a moral basis here. We are talking about hard facts and scientific evidence here. Right? We are not saying, “You should not have money because money is a bad thing,” and all that. No, no. None of the moralistic preaching. Nothing. We are talking about science here. Hard science.

Should that be your definition of success? Please think. Should you be impressed when you find somebody flaunting his money? Should we be impressed? But we do get impressed, don’t we? Not only do we ourselves get impressed, there is something within us that takes some kind of hollow pride in flaunting money if we have it.

In fact, most of the time, we flaunt money even if we do not have it, right? Don’t we? Those who can’t have the real Western luxury brands — they go for their cheap Chinese copies, right? There’s a certain perverted pleasure in showing off that you are successful. But this definition of success — that deals with amassing stuff, with conquering nature, with deforestation, with more and more land available for your own personal consumption — this definition of success is dirty, violent, and criminal. Can there be an alternative definition of success? I don't know. But we need to figure it out. We should have figured it out long back. It's already too late.

Please understand, it's not just about temperature rise. When a system gets infused with additional energy, that energy will show up not just in the form of temperature but in all other ways. Precipitation patterns will be totally disrupted. Wind speeds would go haywire. All that is energy, right? Which basically means that agriculture would become a very difficult thing. It would rain when it does not, and when it's supposed to rain, it won't.

And that also means that the poorest are going to bear the brunt of it.

Those who emit the least will suffer the most. Those who emit the most will suffer the least. This is called climate injustice.

Do you want to have injustice at the foundation of your success? Would you be happy? Think of those, who are celebrating by murdering these 1.3 million people and these are all poor people: Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent — and these deaths will go unnoticed because they are not all dying at once, at one place, in one day. It's not sensational, so it won't catch the media's attention. It's happening all over the place and all the time. It'll become so commonplace that it'll become the new normal. But death is death, right?

And we are only talking of human deaths so far. In between, we talked of the other species that are going permanently extinct because of human action. That's what we are doing. That's what our flawed definition of success is doing.

Now, as the new generation takes over the mantle, do you want to continue with that old definition of success? See how difficult it is to say no in a firm and resounding way, right? Because that success just tempts — it's so lucrative. But I'll be happy if even a few of you say no to that kind of success. Do we have a few people who would want to definitely reject the kind of success that's based on obliterating the planet itself? Do we have a few people ready to say no? Think over it.

Yes, we all want to succeed. Yes, we must be winners. But can we have a more honest, authentic, and less violent definition of success? Does success have to be about exploiting resources and exploiting the poor? Does success have to be about psychological warfare and one-upmanship, and showing yourself superior to your neighbor or to your batchmate or to your colleague? Does it have to be that way?

What then, alternatively, can success be? Contributing to society, making the world a better place — all very nice, but also very clichéd. All right. If I want so desperately, if each of us — we all so desperately want to win — what does that tell about our current condition? When you are already well-fed, do you still want to eat?

Listeners: No.

Acharya Prashant: Having slept for 8 hours, do you still want to sleep? Usually not. Sometimes, yes. Some of you are already dozing off. So if you want something very desperately, that's evidence that you don't have it right now. Right? When you're famished, then you say, "Show me food." So if we are constantly saying, "Show me success," what does that tell about our current condition?

Listeners: Failures and Loosers.

Acharya Prashant: We feel like failures and losers. So before we come to an alternate definition of success, should we not inquire what makes us feel like losers in the first place? Had we not been feeling like losers, why would we clamor for success so much? If I'm not thirsty, while I constantly keep looking at water and dreaming of water. It doesn't make sense. I have to be thirsty. First of all, I must figure out: why are we all so thirsty? And we are not thirsty just at this point, in this place, or in this condition — we find everybody is thirsty for success.

Probably, we are born thirsty. Probably, it's the fundamental human condition to feel like a loser, right? And that's why even kids, when they fight each other, they want to win. They want to dominate. They want to be called the superior one. And that's a tendency we share with animals, don't we?

So there is something within us that's not okay with itself. And that's why it wants to exploit the other. The other could be my brother, my father, my mother, my neighbor — or the jungle, the entire planet with all its nature. Because I feel that unless I conquer somebody, I won't be all right within. That's the fundamental human condition.

That's the point man started from: he was feeling like a loser, and he thought maybe if he conquered externally, I’ll start feeling good about himself. But had he paused for a while, looked within, and figured out what is it that really nails him down, that really makes him feel defeated internally — then he could have maybe given himself a more targeted medicine, a wiser medicine.

Those who have known, they have said: your internal weaknesses make you fight external enemies. They've not stopped there. They have said: your internal weaknesses make you imagine external enemies. They have said: when these weaknesses are all raging within, then it becomes compulsory for you to display a fake strength on the outside. When internally you feel defeated all the time, then there is great temptation to feel like a conqueror outside.

And what is this internal defeat? This internal defeat is something that we are all born with. But thankfully, it's not a defeat that is compulsory or permanent.

We are all born with no sense of who we are, right? Seen, a newborn throwing her limbs is always possible. Making no sense of what's going on, needing protection all the time, totally dependent on everybody else. That's how we are born. We do not know what's going on.

And when you do not know what's going on, often you want to clutch at everything. When you do not know what you really need, then often you desire everything. When you do not know what you really need, then you shop for everything. Don't you? Have you seen that? You walk into a super mall which has everything under the sky, but you do not know what you really want. So, you end up shopping a lot. Whereas a fellow who clearly knows what he or she needs walks in, picks up, and gets out.

Those who stay shopping for six hours are those who probably don't need to shop for anything — because they don't really need anything. Hence, they want everything. That is what must be known: what is it that you really, really internally need?

That is the kind of success that your generation must now espouse, because the old model of success has totally failed you. Not only has it failed you, the debris of the old model of success is all upon you. The old ones have left that debris for you. And if "debris" doesn't sound scary enough, let me call it radioactive debris. How does it feel now?

They consumed the planet, and the ashes have been left for you to deal with. The generations before yours — they have burned the planet down, and it's now upon you to make amends. That's not a happy place to be in, right?

You cannot carry forward their legacy, can you? So, you need to have a new definition of success altogether. I need to fight the enemy inside. The enemy isn't out there. First of all, the enemy is in here — here (inside of us). These are the two kinds of successes possible. Very carefully, you must pick yours.

Do you want to continue the way the oldies went and destroyed themselves and the entire planet? Or do you want to have a new path, a new light for yourself? What do you want — the same old beaten road, or a new path?

Not sure whether the story was entertaining, but it needs to be told. It needs to be told again and again, over and over again. Because you guys—you will be taking it all on yourself, right? You must know these things. And the media is not bringing these things to you, is it? Is it there on national news? Do you find it on entertainment channels? Are movies being made on these themes? Even in the print media, are these things being covered? Rarely. And social media — we take that to be democratic. Are these things talked of even on social media? Rarely.

And even if somebody talks of them, does the algorithm support that or promote that? No, it does not. You must talk of these things because it's your life, your planet, your future. Getting it? It might not be that entertaining, but I hope it is a bit illuminating. Today, we need illumination more than entertainment. Do we agree? And illumination itself has a certain joy about it. Has it not?

Questioner: Good afternoon, sir. I am Katyayani, and I have a follow-up question. Your answer provided immense clarity on the true definition of success. But I was curious: how do we know that we are chasing the right version of success?

Acharya Prashant: No, you have to be with yourself. It's your life that you have to live, right? Only you can know what it is that bogs you down internally. These are your fears, insecurities. We are vague within — hazy within — when it comes to taking important decisions. We look around, don't we?

Questioner: Yes, sir.

Acharya Prashant: We experience all of that. And that's what we have to know — not just push under the carpet. We get angry. We get instinctive. We get reactive, don't we?

This is what needs to be conquered, not the forest. That's the weakness that you have to conquer. Somebody comes and says, "Not looking good," and you find it’s bogging you. Even two hours later, you find it’s still here — some odd comment by a random stranger. He just said, “No, not looking fine. Something wrong with you,” and you're still holding on to it. That's the weakness. And that's not a small thing, because that's what life is — a series of such micro events, day in and day out.

Somebody comes and says something, and you get angry. And the bigger thing is, you got angry at exactly the same thing last month as well, and the month before that, and the month before that, and the month before that. That's what you need to conquer. That's where success lies. And those who can conquer themselves — they find that they do not desire any kind of nonsense on the outside. And then what they want on the outside becomes very readily available.

I'm saying two things.

One: When you are clear about yourself, when you watch your actions, your reactions, your thoughts, your hopes — all these things and these are continuously happening with us, right? When you watch these things and you know what it is that keeps cooking within, you have some clarity about that, then the first thing is: you do not rush after random targets on the outside.

Second thing: The target that you now set with clarity doesn’t remain beyond you. The one who has conquered the enemy within finds it relatively easier to conquer whatever she wants on the outside.

On the other hand, if you have not looked inside yourself and you keep conquering stuff outside, you find all those conquests hollow, and you are still hungry for more. And this hunger is what is devastating the planet.

Questioner: Yes sir. Thank you.

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