I bought a plaque which had this quote “If you aim at nothing you will hit it” with a picture of a dart in a bulls eye, more than a decade ago in a Ramakrishna Matt. I related it to the Bhagavad Gita’s most powerful couplet:
Karmanye vA dhikArasthe mA phalesu kadacana
Karma phala hetur bhurma te sangastva karmani
Of course the actual meaning of the poem is different but I loosely translated it as give your best at what you do and don’t aim at the result. If your efforts are sincere you will hit the target. That was my thought when I bought it.
Yesterday I was unpacking some boxes and found the plaque. I tried to understand what it meant. Now, the analyst in me got confused. It does not seem to imply the same meaning for me. I mean how can you hit at some thing if you don’t aim for it right? There should be some target. Some goal which we are trying to achieve may be big or small but some thing to work for.
One way to analyze the saying is “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time!” That can be quite true as you do not have any expectations and you are happy with what ever you get. I like this analysis as it happened to me a lot in my life. I never had huge expectations and wish lists with anything related to my life and I am amazed at how much I have accomplished or should I say I am blessed with that I am completely satisfied and I guess I did indeed hit what I aimed for. I mean had I aimed for the things I have now in my life, and for some reason did not get those I would not be this happy with what I had. Wow, it is getting more confusing now!
That does not mean that one should aim low or have no aim at all and make little resolutions that they stick to. In this case if you don’t have anything to aim at, you will probably hit nothing and achieve nothing. I think the adage works in some contexts and for some people. It definitely does not work for ambitious people. That is for sure. When it comes to not so ambitious people like me, for instance, taking one step at a time, putting in sincere efforts on one thing I do will give good results. In this case, even the second best seems like the best thing to happen. In my opinion life is all about being happy and be thankful what you have and be contended.
There is no short cut to success. Hard work is the key. You can’t fail if you don’t give up. There are people who aim high, dream big dreams, set big goals in life and they aim for it with conviction and achieve them too. These are the people with an attitude of “I can do what ever it takes” and they actually do all it takes to get what they want. The over ambitious people lose a lot in the process of achieving their goals. They do achieve big things, but they miss life’s little surprises, and are completely worn out in the process of meeting their goals. They win some and lose some. But they always regret for the loss.
Is there any other meaning to this adage? I wonder what else it can be.
Karmanye vA dhikArasthe mA phalesu kadacana
Karma phala hetur bhurma te sangastva karmani
Of course the actual meaning of the poem is different but I loosely translated it as give your best at what you do and don’t aim at the result. If your efforts are sincere you will hit the target. That was my thought when I bought it.
Yesterday I was unpacking some boxes and found the plaque. I tried to understand what it meant. Now, the analyst in me got confused. It does not seem to imply the same meaning for me. I mean how can you hit at some thing if you don’t aim for it right? There should be some target. Some goal which we are trying to achieve may be big or small but some thing to work for.
One way to analyze the saying is “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time!” That can be quite true as you do not have any expectations and you are happy with what ever you get. I like this analysis as it happened to me a lot in my life. I never had huge expectations and wish lists with anything related to my life and I am amazed at how much I have accomplished or should I say I am blessed with that I am completely satisfied and I guess I did indeed hit what I aimed for. I mean had I aimed for the things I have now in my life, and for some reason did not get those I would not be this happy with what I had. Wow, it is getting more confusing now!
That does not mean that one should aim low or have no aim at all and make little resolutions that they stick to. In this case if you don’t have anything to aim at, you will probably hit nothing and achieve nothing. I think the adage works in some contexts and for some people. It definitely does not work for ambitious people. That is for sure. When it comes to not so ambitious people like me, for instance, taking one step at a time, putting in sincere efforts on one thing I do will give good results. In this case, even the second best seems like the best thing to happen. In my opinion life is all about being happy and be thankful what you have and be contended.
There is no short cut to success. Hard work is the key. You can’t fail if you don’t give up. There are people who aim high, dream big dreams, set big goals in life and they aim for it with conviction and achieve them too. These are the people with an attitude of “I can do what ever it takes” and they actually do all it takes to get what they want. The over ambitious people lose a lot in the process of achieving their goals. They do achieve big things, but they miss life’s little surprises, and are completely worn out in the process of meeting their goals. They win some and lose some. But they always regret for the loss.
Is there any other meaning to this adage? I wonder what else it can be.
8 comments:
Some people perform well under pressure. Give loads and lots of targets to them. Show them everything to aim at. They will Achieve a lot.
Others perform well under cooler circumstances. without any pressure. They should aim at nothing.
Hey Anonymous,
What you said is true.
Thank you for reading and commenting on my post.
Happy New Year!
Madhuri
I will not acquiesce in on it. I regard as polite post. Especially the designation attracted me to review the sound story.
Hey Anonymous,
The reason why you won't acquiesce would be????
The "designation" attracted you???? What do you mean?
Madhuri
Hi
Very nice and intrestingss story.
Hello,
My understanding of this saying is that if you aim for nothing, you will receive nothing. It reminds me of the saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This saying is an encouragement to live deliberately, with goals, with a plan, and thus to achieve whatever you want, to hit the bull's eye. The reverse it, if you aim for something, you will hit something - but to hit the mark requires your time to practise your skill, to perfect your technique, and if you don't give up, you will hit the mark!
I agree that life offers many gifts and blessings, and that is wonderful. I also just live life and let life happen to me, and I am grateful for where I am, and yet there is always the possibility that my life has greater potential, and the only way I will fulfill that potential is by writing down those goals and making deliberate steps towards achieving them.
To me the phrase is putting an emphasis on focus...maintaining focus on whatever task your doing...good post thank you
Hello Dear,
I visited a sites, before i read it, i dint get at all, you cleared all trhe things,
Thank you so much
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