“The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man."
-
George Bernard Shaw
I am sure many
of us have heard or come across the above quote. Accepting the possible is the
mark of a reasonable man, whereas wanting something that is impossible is the
mark of an unreasonable man. A reasonable man accepts the explanation given by
someone as to why something cannot be done. The unreasonable man does not
accept the explanation and is never willing to take “Not Possible” as an
answer. This is how many scientific inventions and discoveries have happened.
This is how much progress has happened to mankind.
We may have all
heard this story, in our school days or as a grown up in any of the training
sessions. The story goes like this: There was a king who wanted to walk around
his kingdom, but owing to the scorching heat of the sun, could not walk on the
hot streets barefoot. So, one day, he turned to his minister and ordered: “I
want you to carpet the entire kingdom by tomorrow morning. The poor minister
sat up the entire night thinking about this impossible task. Suddenly, an idea
struck his mind and he set off on a task. The next day, when the king woke up
and went out, he found not an inch of carpet anywhere, so he began bellowing
for the minister and in a few minutes the minister appeared before the king,
clutching a pair of foreign objects in his hands. He said “Oh your highness,
please be so kind first to wear these on your feet”. The king agreed, and then
the minister slipped the world's first pair of carpet slippers onto the king's
feet. Instantly the king's anger turned to delight. He was able to walk
wherever he wanted to go, without getting his soles burnt. He was a happy man,
thereafter.
The moral of the
story or the message, one aims to convey through this story is that we cannot
change the entire world, but we can adjust ourselves to fit into this world.
This is what we have taught our children and our future generations have very
wellbought this idea. The moral of this story, does not appease me. To me, the King
looks like a selfish man. As soon as he found a
solution to his
problem, he forgot about the same problem which all his countrymen would have
been facing at that point of time. In case the king persisted that the whole
kingdom should be carpeted, he would have done a greater good to his
countrymen, so that not only him, but the entire population could enjoy walking
barefoot. I am not saying this is a logically correct decision, but this could
be the intentionally correct decision.
In a way or
other, all of us are like this king. We try to protect ourselves and only
ourselves in an unsafe world. If there is going to be indefinite strike, we
tend to buy and store as much food grains and grocery as possible, so that we
do not starve. If there is going to be a fuel price hike, we fill the tank to
minimize our expenses. In order to ensure uninterrupted power supply to our
house, we install extra-large tubular batteries to store as much power as we
can. This is exactly what a reasonable man will do. But the truth is, this is
just a temporary solution to a permanent
problem. In the
days to come, this will further escalate and things will get worse. If we need
a permanent solution, we need an unreasonable man who will look for a solution
beyond the purview of his self. While a reasonable man is concerned about his
own safety and security an unreasonable man is selfless in motive and is truly
fearless amidst so much uncertainties.
Many
unreasonable people have walked this planet making this world a better place.
We have seen unreasonable men in the form of Gandhi who quit his job in South
Africa and returned to India, to free his countrymen from the clutches of the
British Empire; in the form of Mother Teresa who left her home country, to
serve the poor and the uncared people in the streets
of Kolkatta in
the form of Narayanan Krishnan, who has quit his job from a 5 start hotel and
is now feeding the desperate people in the streets of Madurai.
There are many
such examples, of selfless social leaders. The world is need of more such
unreasonable men. Dare to be one and make a difference!
Happy Reading,
D.Senthil Kannan
Article Dated Feb'13
