From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 17

WELCOME
the boatman said. "You have wasted half of your life..." the scholar quipped. But before he could complete his sentence, he noticed that water was gushing into the boat through a crevice in its bottom. Both the boatman and the scholar got extremely worried. Suddenly the boatman asked the scholar, "Do you know swimming?" "No, I don't,' came back the quick reply. "Then you have wasted the whole of your life.”
Falling into the trap of the prevailing rat-race, management education has been reduced to, as one B-school itself has been claiming in its advertisements, "making big dreams come true, achieving more in life, and making big money." For many of us, this is perhaps the primary, if not the only, objective in life. There is a certain class of people who do not care to think on the vital problems and issues of life for themselves and are ever content to be guided by the thoughts of others. For these people, the story ends when their friends and neighbours start considering them as successful and tell them that they would like their sons and daughters to emulate them. They never fail to compare themselves with some of their friends and acquaintances who have not been able to rise up the corporate ladder as high and as fast as they have. No more does a fire exist in their belly which drives a man to constantly aspire for higher and more adventurous goals in life. They are not likely to find the perusal of this book interesting.
Fortunately, there are other 'learners' of management who take a more holistic view and believe that managing a corporation is, at best, a part of their being and certainly not the whole of it. They hold that their role in life is much bigger than just pushing figures, making strategies, and managing men. Hitherto, they have excelled in their chosen fields and have achieved and acquired whatever they wanted to. But, they raise the bar for themselves a bit higher no sooner than they achieve a particular height. They are like a long-distance runner who is testing his
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