Parents

My biggest motivation for converting my personal journal into my first book came from the life of my parents, Sardarni Ranjit Kaur and Sardar(Late) Harinder Singh.

Seeing mom perform daily household chorus diligently was a huge motivation. Every task was completed, on time, every day without fail.

I often wondered how she was able to do all this when I could not even handle my school homework?

Simple yet forgetful tasks like changing the date of the paper calendar on the wall, every day, was performed diligently in the midst of the chaos of getting us ready for school, cooking lunch for us, dad and self, cleaning the house, washing clothes, making paper boats and planes for me☺ and washing dishes among other things.

If this is not the perfect example of discipline, leadership and time management, then probably nothing is.

Often we give more importance to working women then homemakers. Well, seeing mom work day and night I can definitely say how wrong we all are.

I am not trying to berate a working woman or anything, but homemakers deserve equal respect.

They have the most thankless job in the world, yet they continually work their whole life without any appreciation or appraisal of any kind. They deserve our utmost respect.

While growing up, and even today, Mom has been our strength; she will remain the pillar of power for the three of us.

We always had the utmost respect for her. Even though she could not complete her education, she took a keen interest in our studies and in fact, was envied in the entire neighborhood because we were the only ones without tuition.

Tuition, although not as much fashionable in the '80s as it is now, was not standard then.

The neighborhood aunties would always mention that mom must be quite educated to manage the education of three children at home. We were proud of their observation about her.

Dad was a government employee, though business was always his passion but, as it was the custom those days, because of parental pressure, he gave up the idea of starting his own business and continued the same job for over 35 years.

He did something he never liked all his life so where is the learning here then?

I mean where is the Motivation that I just talked about, you might ask?

You see, the fact that he worked for so long without liking whatever it is he was doing didn’t make him a loser. In fact, he is my ‘superhero’ for doing this for such a long time because he had put his family first.

I wanted to highlight the part of his life that has always motivated me.

He always smiled and laughed while on the job and off of it too.

Never heard him complain or crib. He, sort of, made it a practice even to enjoy the thing he didn’t like and still excel at it.

His life reminds me of a quote by Amitabh Bachchan “Mann ka ho accha, naa ho toh zada accha (If things happen according to your wishes it is good, but if they don’t then it’s even better).”

You see, people of my Dad’s generation never got a chance to quit and pursue their passion, some had responsibilities while others might have lacked the resources.

So, does that make my Dad’s, and countless like him, life smaller or worthless compared to an Ambani or a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs or an Edison or so many other people in business, scientists, and adventurers? Do you know the so-called successful people?

HELL NO and a double HELL NO++

People of my dad’s generation and the countless before them dedicated their lives to their families and that makes their success absolutely ‘Super Duper’.

For them, their family was their greatest adventure and achievement, and they deserve our respect for this.

For all those who disagree with me, try looking at things from their (previous generation) perspective; for them, responsibility and commitment didn’t mean a ‘Limit’, but to them it meant freedom, it meant success, it meant discovery, it meant adventure, it meant happiness, it meant LIFE itself.

Probably that is the reason they were more satisfied with their lives than any of us will ever be. Surely my generation and many afterward have created new milestones and standards for success in every field, but then we will never be as content as my dad’s generation or as the previous ones were.

This dissatisfaction is evident by the increasing number of psychological problems and suicides, among the younger lot, the world over and not just in third world countries but also in developed countries.

One thing we all can learn from the previous generation is that moving out of your comfort zone doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on your responsibilities; it’s in fact about strengthening your responsibilities and moving ahead towards whatever it is you are trying to achieve.

Giving up one thing doesn’t necessarily guarantee success in the other.

The strength and motivation you receive from your family are priceless.

That’s the way my Dad lived his life, and I can only hope that I get to live my life just like him.

He dedicated his life to us, his family, and I love him for that. “It’s not the standard of living that makes you happy it’s the standard of your life that makes you happy” Gaur Gopal Das.

These words are an accurate representation of the life of my parents and their generation, and I can only hope that someday I will also achieve this happiness.

THEY ARE MY BIGGEST MOTIVATION & THEY ARE THE FOUNDATION OF THE RELIGION THAT I FOLLOW.