THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP








This man just left my office, after enrolling his daughter in eleventh. “She is clear about what she wants to do in life and self-motivated, unlike her elder brother.” he told me while he was here. He added, with a visible pain, “He failed in TY three years ago and, now, loiters around with his useless friends.”


The quality of our lives is the quality of our choices… And, one of the most significant choices, we all make in our lives, is the company we choose to keep…

Our friends, our peers… can make us or break us…

There is no point blaming anyone… It doesn’t help.

If friends influence the quality of our life, then, we all are equally responsible…

For, we have chosen to be friends with each other…

“Be careful about the company you keep,” I keep reminding my newly-inducted students; “if you move around with goal-less guys, you will, surely, become a goal-less guy, too. Similarly, if you move around with highly-motivated guys, their motivation will rub on you, too.”

“Birds of the same feather flock together.”

There is one more: “If you lie down with dogs, you will rise up with fleas.”

I was watching on YouTube an interview with Milkha Singh. He is going to be 84 and he still looks fit as a fiddle!

 “What is the secret, sir?” is the question.



What impressed me the most was the first secret 
 
the legendary ‘Flying-Sikh’ reveals: 
 
“I don’t keep the company of the old people!”



Now, the statement is made by the legend with no offense to the elderly people. He himself is one. “The old people tend to complain and grumble… about their sons and daughters-in-laws… about the ill-treatment or lack of attention,” Milkha Singh tells the interviewer, “ I keep myself away from such things.” He adds, “Whenever I meet them, I tell them this… ‘You people have lived your life to the fullest… Kindly do not interfere in your children’s’ lives’. But, interference is in their blood.”

Yes sir, the company that you keep does matter…

To live long, strong… and highly motivated … 

Or, to live like a vegetable… goal-less and grumpy.


GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Gloria Pinto




Comments

Sheena D'Sa said…
Excellent writing!!!! Sheena
July 17, 2013 at 2:34 PM
Pushpalata said…
Well-said and apt.
-- Pushpa
July 17, 2013 at 3:47 PM
Savita N Kumar said…
so true and the worst thing is that most of the time the influence is so unconscious that person who tries to make you aware of this is not taken rightly . By the time you realize time has just flown away and we start thinking what now.

July 17, 2013 at 4:49 PM
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