MOTIVATION & COMPETETIVE SPIRIT, KEY TO SUCCESS!
By:Tashi Dhondup
'MOTIVATION' and 'LEADERSHIP'. This is just the area where our youth lag behind and is the main cause for so many unnecessary youth related confusion and employment problem we face in our community. The biggest malady afflicting our youth in particular and community as a whole is the lack of MOTIVATION and the sense of urgency to move forward - not that we lack facilities and opportunities.
In fact, we see this malady affecting all section of our society including our Institutions and Schools. We have excellent schools, facilities and educational opportunities as well as employment, but we Tibetans are customized to easy going and totally lack modern competitive spirit. We take everything for granted and pay scant or no regard at all for all these precious facilities and opportunities we are blessed with by the grace of His Holiness and through the kind support of foreign organizations. We have closely observed this phenomenon in our schools too. Although we have excellent facilities and opportunities to make it big in academic field, unfortunately, most of our people and the students do not recognize the preciousness of the available opportunities and facilities. Even these days many either do not apply their intelligence to its full capacity or keep dropping out of school at smallest pretext and often for no real reason but out of sheer laziness to study and work hard. Having closely observed social and educational issues, and realizing how precious has become these same facilities and opportunities to our Indian counterparts, a sense of guilt feeling overwhelm me whenever I see our children, youth and people abusing or wasting these precious resources and facilities. We must know that millions of Indian families have to struggle hard to send their children to good schools. For this reason, the would-be career counselors need to have firm fundamental understanding of the root causes of unemployment problem, so that he/she not only can give counsel to the youth in employment matters, but also is well equipped to tackle this problem at the root. He/she can help remove those factors and causes that create and contribute to swelling number of unemployment. For example, if we continue to ignore quality of education in the schools and also keep churning out middling graduates and post-graduates, then there is no way to solve this problem and the number of unemployed youth will keep increasing instead of coming down even as the all out efforts to address this problem starts gaining momentum. The need of the hour is to strive for excellence in all spheres of educational pursuits and activities.
Therefore, I think, the counselors must also have necessary tools, which they can use to contain and eliminate school dropout rate from our schools. The second thing is to educate students and teachers alike on the supreme importance of qualitative education and excellence in academic activities. As a displaced people, we Tibetans are living in a state of cultural and national emergency. We have to produce maximum result from the facilities and opportunities available by taking our responsibility very seriously. However, generally our people stop making progress after reaching at a certain point of success and then give up all the enthusiasm and let things go awry, even begin to resist changes and improvement. Being simple, honest, kind, and self-content and culturally conscious do not mean we should not use our mental faculties and innate potentials to the fullest. Majority of our people mistake being kind and simple with that of virtually remaining idle and disassociate from actively involving in any kind of innovative venture aimed at bringing in social and educational development and changes.
I think the strategy could be two prone approaches: One: Preparing individual youth for gainful employment and enabling them to choose a suitable career. This is possible only with those who already possess required qualification and skill to handle a job properly. Two: Equip some talented youth leaders who can involve group of youth who will mobilize the youth and people on a large scale to create cultural, educational, and political awareness by visiting settlements and schools and interacting person to person. In short, what can make a huge difference but we are not seeing in our society, is the competitive spirit, respect for toil and drive for excellence in one's work and profession. It is very baffling to see many talented and intelligent youth, who have earned first class in graduation and post graduation and who possess much potential to rise to any height in career and life, just stop making further advancement in career once they get a simple bread-earning job. They just remain content with their first job, which also becomes their last and let their hard-earned knowledge decay over the years while no new skill or knowledge is being added to their mind. Totally lacking in enterprise and motivation to achieve higher goals. Many hardly realize that our youth are at most advantageous position to get their chosen jobs because of our good nature, simplicity, sincerity, loyalty, and honesty. These are plus points we need to know to muster self-confidence in making it big in any field. What is needed is to fine-tune and sharpen one's knowledge, aptitude, and skill to meet the requirement of the job market. Tibetan job seekers being discriminated against by the companies is myth. All the reputed companies and business organizations hunt talent and the only criterion for selection is the merit, because these organizations are compulsorily cosmopolitan by nature.
Through career and job placement counseling, we can help only those youth who already possess all the vital qualification and talent. However, by motivating and igniting creativity and sense of innovation latent within each person, we can help more number of youth to channel their time and energy for socially beneficial activities and pursuits. Some people believe that making money is sin and that remaining poor and economically backward is to be virtuous. This ill-advised social notion would have ensured our people not making any real headway in economic and social development at least for another few decades. We need to dispel this kind of harmful superstitious notion from our society and especially from the mind of our youth. The truth is that even according to the scriptures, earning money is one of the four main goals of a person's life. No one can deny the fact that money is indispensable in our life. It is the blind love for money, which is the cause of social evils. Even for religious and cultural work to succeed, we need financial resources. It is the absence of organized religious and cultural services catering to the specific needs of the youth that they are increasingly being distanced from their cultural root, not that they are disinterested or unconcerned of their cultural and traditional knowledge and values. Since they compete for a career to lead a successful life in the milling crowds, some negligence on cultural front is inevitable on their part. Therefore, I believe that it is a grave mistake to ignore economic prosperity of our people in the name of giving priority to preservation of culture and tradition. Undoubtedly, our religion, culture, and traditions are of paramount importance. However, these two – preserving culture and tradition and economic development of the community-need not become contradictory pursuits. Strong economic position will inevitably bring religious and cultural boon as well. Were it not for the financial assistance provided by foreign organizations, the thriving Tibetan Monastic and cultural Centers dotting the settlements would not have been a reality. Contrarily, if our people remained economically weak and back warded, we shall never able to make any real progress in all sphere of human activities. If our people are economically well off and independent, we can accomplish the work of preserving our national identity and cultural heritage even on larger scale than what we have achieved now. Education and economy are vital wings of success of a nation and people without which we can never reach any height in any sphere of human activities.
Therefore, we need to focus on how to mobilize, transform mindset and mentality of our youth and people in our community. This propels us to topics such as, motivation, leadership, innovation, drive and urges to do something and make optimum use of one's knowledge and talent; to explore one's own potentials in different fields; to develop innovative approach to finding employment. These are in part related to self-employment and self-help enterprises, partnership ventures, etc., and in part to creativity and innovation. Deeply linked to these is the respect for labour and the sense of social and community service. How to develop this sense of social and community service and respect for labour in the youth is the key question we need to find an answer in order to bring significant changes and development in the community.
Every child should be treated equally. On that basis, every child must get equal and full educational opportunity not only to study but also to rise to the highest level of his/her potentials.
Acquisition of knowledge and education is fundamental right of an individual. The purpose of acquiring knowledge should not be linked with adopting a profession alone. Education is basic need of every human being to accomplish his/her inner development and enrichment of knowledge. Education and knowledge has far greater role to play in an individual's life than merely enabling him to earn few money. More than money, knowledge, and education give a person's life the real meaning and value of being gifted with all the supreme faculties that only a human being can boost among all living beings. Education and knowledge brings true meaning to one's life and make it worthy, purposeful and distinct from other living beings.
Secondly, we must remember that ours is a land locked country with sparse population. Unlike India and other developing countries, the problem with we Tibetans is the shortage of number not the excess. Hence, our efforts should be geared to produce maximum number of highly educated Tibetans in the diverse field of knowledge so that eventually once we return to our country we can run our country on our own strength without relying upon others.
The value of being educated should not be measured only in terms of getting a job; well-educated people serve as an important national asset. They have positive effect and influence upon the family, society, and nation. They promote right attitudes and notions in the society. They foster cultural, social, and national ideals and values and ensure that society follow right path leading to social development, prosperity, and happiness. They act as conscience keeper of the society and inspire fellow compatriots to imbibe healthy cultural ethos and values. Those who advocate reduction in the number of students pursuing higher education forget the vital point that as a human being it befits his/her supreme faculties to seek higher education irrespective of what career he or she is going to choose or not.. It is more prudent to sacrifice some personal comforts to equip oneself with supreme knowledge in any science and subject instead of wasting one's precious intelligence and mental faculties by not developing these to their full capacity and by remaining, preoccupied only with bread and butter. Even animals find their own food.
Normally people do not know that people running tea stalls and vegetables stalls at strategic locations in the cities and market place earn handsome profits. However, as a social norm, even a poorly educated Tibetan youth will show dislike to doing this kind of petty business not knowing these are extremely profitable with zero risk and requiring low investment. Here we have lots to learn from western culture where no job is regarded lowly or privileged. Only a man does what a man can do. There is nothing lowly about doing a job. Frankly speaking, we live in India where millions people hunt job and yet not all get disappointed every day. Compared to theirs, ours is just a tiny drop. Job opportunity within our own administration and community may be limited but in India, the opportunities are as varied and vivid to suit every individual.
Especially for the Engineers, Doctors, and Computer professionals, the demand is always there. There is plenty of job opportunity for all the graduates in the IT sector. Tibetan spirituality and Culture itself has opened up a huge professional scope in recent years. It is the one excellent field where Tibetan youth have hardly shown any inclination. This has created a huge resource gap, which is effectively filled by scores of western Dharma students, teachers, professors, and students who have already made amazing contribution in the spread and growth of the Dharma in the West. Few Tibetans from the younger generation have made their presence felt in the increasing publication industry built on the works of Tibetan Buddhism and spiritual knowledge. The fact that 87 % of the Tibetan Buddhism works including that of successive Dalai Lamas' have to be from non-Tibetan authors and writers, speaks volumes about the need for drawing the attention of our youth towards this noble field of intellectual, cultural and spiritual realm. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often lamented the shortage of competent professional Tibetans who possess expertise knowledge to handling important organizational and other religious and cultural related projects and works. Today only, few Tibetans are there who are capable to translating His Holiness's works and talks into English. Over the last two decades a hundreds of lay writers and authors from western countries have worked on Tibetan Buddhist works and have produced a large number of Books in English covering entire spectrum of Tibetan spiritualism and Buddhist teachings and practices. It is strange that hardly any Tibetan youth is found aspiring to make a mark in this privileged field of Tibetan Buddhist knowledge industry. Those who specialize in English will do well to take an interest in the world of Tibetan spirituality and Buddhist studies, and to become translators, writers, and teachers to the ever-growing western students. To get started youth can make use of the on line and distant educational services being provided by many Tibetan and non-Tibetan Dharma organizations in addition to opportunity to study in the reputed Monastic Institutions and recognized Institutions like Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarnath and Institute of Tibetan Buddhist Dialectics, Dharamshala.
Being Tibetan is therefore certainly not a drawback. It is same that being a Tibetan is not a guarantee for selection for a job unless you are equipped with required qualification, aptitude, talent, and skill. Therefore, the wisest option is to go after acquiring the necessary credentials and skills, which is possible to accomplish and be successful rather than brooding over things that are beyond one's control. Today everywhere as the globalization sweeps the nations; the trend has been set that whoever is the best in his profession eats the cake of success. The only criteria to succeed are the competitive spirit. It is an open invitation for all and sundry. In this context, it becomes all the more important to ensure that management of educational Institutions are entrusted to the right professional people who are truly role models for the students and staff under their care. Only persons of proven integrity and competence in educational service and who are genuinely wedded to the cause of academic progress of our children, should be given the honour to running and presiding over the vital educational institutions.
Those graduates whose academic credentials are not attractive should try their mettle in the booming IT Service Sector. We have few computer engineers, hardware and software engineers, graphic designers, web writers, whereas computer related technologies are extensively used in various organizations and in the community. Money Investment is another field where our community totally lacks professional expertise and guidance. These human resource and professional expertise gap presents a big career scope for our youth.
Many fault lines in our educational institutions and community contribute to increasing number of graduates and postgraduates finding no job. This provides another subject for researchers. Their findings may be analyzed for the benefit of the officials and educators so that they will be in a position to initiate necessary steps to removing these from the schools, institutions, and community to ensure qualitative education.
We need to constantly remind ourselves the powerful words of Swami Vivekananda: "Awake, arise, sleep no more till you realize your goal!"
