Contentment is bad

Contentment is bad unless you are Buddha or Mahavir. You would not even realize when this contentment transforms into complacency and thence your (asked for) failure.

The world is full of examples that claim this fact. You remember Romesh Powar, the red-goggled Mumbai spinner. He might be talented as he got into the national team, and then out of contentment, he started to take it for granted; never tried to improve his fitness, his fielding and above all bowling, as a result he is out forever. Ask a guy who practices cricket 8 hours a day, sweats out in the gym, pool and race tracks for the remaining day, just to get into the Ranaji team or the university team. And here we have a guy who got such an immense opportunity, a chance to represent the nation and he wasted it like anything.

Have you visited any of the 'More' stores by the Aditya Birla Group? They have huge establishments, so many employees, so much space, money and experience to experiment with and become a leader in FMCG sales. But where do they stand right now? Nowhere.

This is because of the very basic reason - they don't even understand that the force that drives the middle class is money; if you don't give discounts, if you are not healthy on the pockets of the consumers, why would the customer prefer you over the local kirana store or any other local grocery store.

Have you visited any of the huge book stores namely 'Odyssey' or 'Crossword', i am not sure if they generate profits or not. But one thing is for sure, if they deploy a few very obvious strategic techniques, they would be heavily profitable.

People actually love reading, they want to purchase original books, but the books are so heavily charged. A piece of fiction which is not more than a few hours read for a voracious reader is worth 500 bucks. I can not even imagine buying that book; hence i go to the road side vendor and purchase the duplicate copy for 70-200 rupees. Yes, i feel guilty in doing so but i can't help, i can not purchase a book at an asking price of Rs.500.

Firstly if that book had been priced 250 or so i would have gone for the original one, secondly if those grandiose stores offer schemes like discounts on future purchases or gift coupons or for that matter anything which make me feel that i get worth of MY money whenever i go to so and so store, why would i go for the duplicate cheap purchases (Recently i purchased the duplicate titles of - 'Go kiss the world' and 'The White Tiger' for the very same reason).

Contentment certainly leads to happiness but it kills the urge to get ahead. In a race, you are contended that there are five cars behind you, but that would never make you win, what would make you win is i have to speed up, there are still 8 cars ahead of me.

Just after college, we get into the job without thinking or giving a second thought to WHAT IF i go for this or that? I seek contentment in - Hey! At least i have a job. Also, in the job we don't put in our 100% because we don't find it necessary. But in order to succeed we have to get ahead, think of new frontiers, think of new horizons and without fail head start in that direction.

If you want to get somewhere, you have to know where you want to go and how to get there. Then never, never, never give up.
--Norman Vincent Peale