The Story of the Young Men Who Wanted to Go Somewhere

Okay here is the story of the young men who wanted to go somewhere.

Once upon a time there were a few young men who were working very hard to go to a place called Somewhere but were not getting much results to show for what they were putting in. These young men soon started thinking that they were really unlucky, that the system was unfair, that there was no justice, that the gods were unkind, that the stars were not favorable, that the vastu was not good, that their numerology was bad, that their astrology was bad, that their forefathers astrology was bad, and so on.

Painting by Anjali

One day a wise man passed by their camp. He heard their hard luck story. He said that as far as he knew the process behind anything works in a certain way - that we first know where we stand, that we aspire for a particular goal and then we put in efficient work to get there. The work put in is the process, said the man. The more efficient the process the better the result. If the process is inefficient, the results will show similarly.

Since the young men were not getting anywhere he told the young men to look at their process and see if there were certain inefficiencies in it. If they were, they were repeating the same mistakes and not getting the results they wanted. The young men looked on angrily. Here we are working so hard and this man dares tells us that we are not following the process, that we are to blame. They rejected the idea. They told the man to leave.

Another year passed and the young men had not got anywhere yet. The wise man came again. They looked at him with circumspectly. They were exactly where they were last year. The older boys looked away angrily. But one young boy was curious to know.

'Why are we still here?' asked one young man. 'We are putting in some much hard work.'

The wise man changed his story. 'Look. You are here. You want to go Somewhere. Logically you ought to find out the best route to Somewhere and start walking in that direction. While traveling you must check on landmarks so you know you are on the right path. Then you know that your effort is showing some result. The one who reaches Somewhere first is the one who has figured out the best way to get Somewhere, the shortest and the most efficient.'

'On the other hand people like you go round in circles. You may put in more work than the chaps who reached Somewhere because you have no process at all. You will keep running round like headless chicken. You might even land up at Wherever instead. Then there is no point blaming the world for the hard work you put in. It is useless.'

The young man asked. 'How do we start moving? I want to move from here.'
The wise man said. 'If you really want to go Somewhere, you will figure out the process. You would have looked around and sought all the information on finding the best route. You would have met all the experts in the area, everyone who has been Somewhere or even heard of it. Even if you had to wait for a couple of days, the expert can guide you perfectly through the dangers on the route. After meeting enough people and getting guidance, you would have got a reliable route map in hand with milestones to monitor progress. Then you will start your journey. You will keep checking along the path if you are on the right route so you do not go too far off. In time you will reach Somewhere for sure.'

'Where will we end up?' asked the bright young man pointing to his friends.
'Nowhere. You do not want to reach Somewhere or Anywhere at all. You are only putting up a charade of doing some work and creating a drama around that you actually want to go Somewhere. All you want to really do is stay here and be known as the one who someday will reach Somewhere. You are running in the same place because that is the process you have adopted. Or  you may end up in some other place far off the mark. You are not even in the competition.'

So saying the wise man got up and left the place. In some time the young man also left the camp.