Knowing When To Exercise Patience And When To Pursue Goals Aggressively
Questioner: Sir, my question is if the goal seems correct, then how do we decide when to be patient, and when to aggressively pursue a particular goal. For example, from an academic point of view, if we try to attempt an exam and we fail, then how do we decide when to try again and when we should drop it? Like our inner self says, “Try again, try again.” But from different sources we get that we should be dropping it. So how to do this decision making?
Acharya Prashant: You are talking of something academic, something related to your career? What is it that you want to give another try to?
Questioner: Sir, I am asking this generally, not a particular instance. If we have two contradicting thoughts, then how do we decide?
Acharya Prashant: It depends on the worth of your goal. Tactics can be changed. Routes can be changed. But if the goal is worthy enough, how can the goal be changed. One does not choose a goal. One chooses to surrender himself to the goal. Or you could say, “If the goal is chosen rightly, then the goal becomes your life.” But that’s only with respect to the right goal.
If worthless or vague goals become your life, that’s no good. First thing is to have the right goal for yourself. The goal cannot come by following the crowd or just deciding in a casual way. The goal has to come from careful consideration and asking yourself, 'Have I not chosen similar goals in the past in a similar way? What came from them? What became of all that?'
So, choose your goal with all the attention and all the intelligence that you have. And once the goal is chosen, give yourself to the goal, surrender to the goal.
Questioner: Okay sir.
Acharya Prashant: And if the goal is worthy enough, usually it won’t be easy to attain. That’s the difficult part. The fun part is, if the goal is chosen with attention, then the goal is something you fall in love with. Therefore, you can stay with the goal for a long time. Therefore, even if you fail, it suffices to know that you are living for the goal. It becomes a love affair.
Questioner: Yes sir.
Acharya Prashant: And then if you fail you do not change the goal. You change the methods, the processes, the approach, the tactics. All those things obviously are negotiable and can be changed. I am talking of the right scenario, the ideal scenario.
Choose the goal extremely wisely and then it does not matter whether you are failing or succeeding or what. Obviously, you do not want to keep failing continuously. So, you look at the process of living, the process through which you wanted to move towards whatever you chose. And then you make continuous improvements in the process. But all this talk of improvement and everything make sense only if, first of all, the goal is right.
The trouble with 99% of us is that the goal itself is not right. And because the goal is not right, you keep getting those contradictory thoughts you talked of, you know. That’s one great benefit one gets, by having the right goal for himself. There is no inner conflict. Contradictory thoughts don’t arise at all. Something has been settled for good, probably settled for life. I know this is what I have to do. I know this is who I am. I know this is what I love. So, no contradictory thoughts on that anymore, and that’s a privileged situation to be in, that’s a lot of peace. And that saves a lot of your inner energy.
A lot of people are continuously battling with themselves within. And all the energy is getting dissipated just inwardly without making any real progress; like a vehicle accelerating in the neutral gear, burning a lot of fuel, getting heated but making no progress.
So, when the goal is chosen rightly, then thoughts of giving up or changing track, what you call as second thoughts, third thoughts, those thoughts are rare. Then you have ample space to rather look at your processes and methods, approaches, tactics, and you can work on them.
Questioner: I understood sir, thank you.
