Priyasi Parmar
Celebrated TEDx speaker Vivek Atray, ex-IAS officer and author of Finding Success Within, talked about success and enhancing various life skills that contributed towards architecting a successful person.? ?
He started the webinar by comparing how a chef derived greater joy in preparing a meal if a client chose his favourite dish. The same, he said, was the case for him, as he addressed one of his favourite topics, Inculcating Human Values in children. At the onset, he mentioned how degradation and deterioration in the environment would adversely affect the future generations and was bringing down our own as well, and the intense urge to find the right balance.
Dwelling on the values and ethics one must inculcate and work with for the rest of our lives, he talked about the Basic Human Values that were depleting at a fast rate, as youth mostly preferred survival at all costs and prioritised material benefits, materialistic success, ran after money, prosperity, fame, power.
Todays kids were deep into the rat race and were ready to employ all kinds of shortcuts, be it dishonesty or treachery. Somewhere, he considered his generation responsible for such activities, as unfortunately, they encouraged such malpractices and told their children to win at all costs, and those costs were human values. One should always remember that success was secondary to values, peace, and happiness, he emphasised, highlighting on building truth and honesty from within. Our actions might be influenced by others and the environment, but dishonesty was always a conscious decision. We always make a conscious choice in such matters and move forward intentionally, he said.
Instead, he inspired the audience to move forward with other skills like forgiveness, which required a lot of strength. Carrying grudges and hatred will lead us nowhere, only burden our minds and hearts in the end. We must mentally forgive people, no matter how long it took to do so, he outlined.
He discussed maintaining calm and balance in every situation and not giving extreme reactions.
Another profound quality to inculcate was Humility, he said while giving examples of great personalities like former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and President APJ Abdul Kalam. Irrespective of their great accomplishments in life, they were very humble and down to earth. Greatness comes from humility.
Moving forward with another skill, Creativity, that provided a great platform for everything and changed our perception about everything around us, Vivek Atray said a creative person was a far better human being. Last, but not least, came Self Restraint. We must be responsible for our own actions and be ready to pay the consequences that follow, he concluded.
