The Architect: Competitiveness

This is a the conversation between 'The Architect' (me) of life and a customer, who beforehand has already installed 'Happy Life'.

Customer: Good Morning Mr Architect. Thanks for 'Happy Life'. However, time to time, I see a reminder saying 'You must stay competent to sustain Happy Life'. I see everyone else outpacing me in all spheres of life. If I think about competition, 'Happy Life' seems to go out of memory Do you have any product like 'Competitiveness' that can sustain Happy Life too.

The Architect: With 'Happy Life' working smoothly, you shouldn't need anything else. Any other package will try to first terminate the 'Happy Life' process, then execute. Why do you need anything else?

Customer: Staying competent and going ahead of others is what that bothers me.

The Architect: Hmm, you see, your floor is someone else's ceiling. You are already ahead of many, in terms of life style and in many other field. The game is all about recognizing your strong points and carrying on in one direction. You must remember, no matter how many floors you step upon, there will always be a ceiling on your top. Why to go on a wild goose chase.

Customer: Hmm, makes sense. Still, I am not satisfied.

The Architect: I see 'Happy Life' going out of priority in your system. Remember, weekly complete idiocy scan is mandatory, as 'Happy Life' is quite vulnerable.

Customer: Will you please tell me how to stay competitive instead of speaking jargon?

The Architect: Define competitiveness!

Customer: The art of going ahead of others.

The Architect: Cool, why is it so difficult then? You want to go ahead in Mathematics? Choose an opponent of 2nd grade. You want to stay ahead in office, compare yourself with freshers in your company. Compare yourself with an animal, you are far civilized than it. Why is it so difficult?

Customer: You are going insane; Why on the earth will I compare myself with a kid or a fresher?

The Architect: Then what makes you compare yourself with those who are smarter, intelligent and more productive than you?

Customer: I buy your augment, comparison is not a good scale to measure with. But what should be done? I am in catch 22 now. Neither I compare myself to a kid, nor to a smart person. Is there a way ?

The Architect: For a second let us assume that you should compare yourself with others, can you really compare everything? Comparison of everything is must, for life does not run on a single trait. You could be far better than a kid in mathematics, but at the same time you might be too poor as compared to him on play grounds. You could be earning much more than a fresher in office, but at the same time you would be spending far less time with your family and mostly importantly with yourself.

Customer: Then who the hell should I compare myself with?

The Architect: Well do the elimination? Didn't you learn the basic strategy for multiple choice questions? Here the question is, 'who should you compare yourself with?'. Options are

1. Those who are slower than you in the field you want to compare
2. Those who are faster than you in the field you want to compare
3. Yourself
   
4. Cannot be compared
   

Clearly, options 1 and 3 are out. 4 is out, as 'Happy Life' demands some comparison. By now you would have seen the light. It is you, with whom you have to compare yourself.

You are the best judge for yourself. If you lack in Maths, you must be good at some other subject. The basic aim of life is going ahead in a positive direction. You must be knowing what you were yesterday and where do you stand today. If you see you have accrude a gain in a time period from yesterday to today, you are competent. This is the comparison that 'Happy Life' demands.

Go ahead and stay competent.

The Architect: Install Happy Life

Life gives you two choices, either be happy and wise or be otherwise. Following is the conversation between me (the architect for the software called 'Happy Life' and a prospective customer).

Customer: Hi, this is customer. I was wondering if your software 'Happy Life' will help me improve my life and hence my relations.

The Architect: Sure, it will. Provided, all the prerequisites have been met.

Customer: So what are those prerequisites and what if I cannot afford them?

The Architect: They come quite cheap and are easy to install. My list of requirement is as following- A complete idiocy scan, Commonsense and willingness to admit the change.

Customer: Ok, first thing first. I want to have a complete idiocy scan. How should I go about it?

The Architect: My pleasure. But you must understand that such a corruption can easily occur and to a good extent it is inevitable. You have to have a weekly planned idiocy scan. To start the scan, first install the base recovery package 'Understanding People'. This package guarantees a safe recovery if the system crashes. Apart from this, you must enable 'Forgiveness' and 'Admit your mistake' in your system. If the complete recovery is not successful, 'Forgiveness' and 'Admit your mistake' will help you alleviate your loss.

Customer: This was quite easy, I am equipped now. Should I double click the 'Idiocy scan' icon? Which viruses can it clean.

The Architect: Sure. Please go ahead but such a scan will only tell you what the viruses are. You yourself have to remove or quarantine them. For the best results, I suggest that you follow manual removal steps.

Customer: Ok. Ok. I am getting the scan results now. Oh my! This is a big list of viruses. Here are they.

1. Looking back into the past and wasting present while destroying future
   
2. Bad relations
3. Hopelessness and zero confidence
   
4. Cocooning thyself

The Architect: Hmm, it is no big. I have seen people with pages long list. Please don't worry, here are the removal steps.

Looking back into the past and wasting present while destroying future:

This is the most commonly found virus. To get rid of this, you have to remember that time is precious and it is slipping. Each second wasted in thinking about past on which you have no control is a second lost. Imaging a situation: You are driving a car, your hands firm on steering, foot on accelerator and brakes but eyes on rear view mirror. Needless to say that you can never drive ahead even if the road is traffic less. Living a good life is akin to smooth driving. You must see in front of you.

Bad relations:

This too is quite common, quite harmful but quite easy to clean up virus. With the help of 'Understanding People', try to analyze what went wrong in each bad relation. Then 'Forgiveness' which must be running as a service will take hold of them automatically. There could be some instances where you are at mistake. You must 'Admit your mistake' them.

Hopelessness and zero confidence:

Either it is over confidence or no confidence. Probabilistic distribution is 50-50 for this virus. Anyway you must take sometime for you everyday and meditate. You must jot down the list of your successes in your life and then analyze what made you achieve them. As soon as you do so, use your strong suits to empower you confidence. Easy is it not?

Cocooning thyself:

I presume you already have met the prerequisite of 'Willingness to admit changes'. As soon as 'Willingness to admit changes' takes hold of your system, you will be out from your cocoon. Remember, as you tread ahead, environment changes, and so should you.

Customer: After big efforts, I have exterminated all the viruses. How about 'Happy Life' now?

The Architect: Bingo! 'Happy Life' is a special software, it takes hold of any system automatically as soon as your system is virus free. And the best part is that it tries to activate itself on the people you communicate with. Commonsense that you installed as the first step to go ahead with, will help you justify your intuitions in life.
You are now equipped with the tools for a happy life. Go forth and multiply.

Happy Birthday to Me

Yes, today it is the day and I have been asked how did I celeberate my birthday. I have no response, for one I vehemently forbid birthday celebration and truly speaking, it does lack in cerebration. If we celebrate, we actually celebrate deterioration. We change ourselves each moment; by each passing moment we kill a part of ourselves and call it getting saner euphemistically. What a delusion! However the new born baby seems to me the most ideal and the sanest person. It doesn't know the materialistic differences between 'right and wrong' and thinks beyond any limit. Whenever it is taught a single bit of pragmatism, a substantial 'ideal' part of it is sabotaged by parents, friends and teachers. As the days pass by, it grows (an euphemism again) and learns science and learns limitations. It learns why stars shimmer at night and learns that nothing can be done about it. With each piece of knowledge gained, it learns what it cannot do. The things it cannot reason, it accepts as faith and attaches a tag 'done by The Providence'. Faith appears to me a short-cut to knowledge, that ludicrously defeats the basic aim of the same. In the later stages of life it hops into the imperfect world and strives for 'existence & fame', commoners' choices I say. It does everything for others, fame in other people's mind, reputation in other people's mind, love for & from other persons. It seems everybody else dictates its life save it. It then collates every details of its inabilities and names them experiences 'euphemistically'. Personally I believe that we should celebrate only two days, the first day and the last day of life. First day for an obvious reason due to the birth of an ideal human being and last day for a less obvious reason due to the quietus of a less ideal person.