Per Chi- For Whom?

To begin with, let me describe a scene from the film, A Beautiful Mind. John Nash, a Harvard maths scholar and a later to-be Nobel Laureate, is begging his dean for giving him more time to work on his idea of Governing Dynamics. His dean reminds him that his fellows at Harvard have attended classes and actually managed to get their work published. He tells John that his efforts at his so-called original idea may be clever but they are hardly good enough. John pleads, "Please consider another review. Professor. I have repeated asked you for that, sir. My revisions are almost done." The dean stops him short as they enter the University cafeteria and shows him an elderly man accepting pens as tokens of appreciation from the men around at his table. The dean asks, "Do you see what they are doing in there?" John looks on. The dean continues, "It's the pens. Deserved for the member of a department who makes the achievement of a lifetime. And what do you see, John?"

"Recognition", replies John.

"Well, try seeing accomplishment", the dean tells him, "John, you haven't focused. I am sorry but after this point your record doesn't warrant any placement at all."

John is left stunned and defeated as his principal walks up to that man at the table and offers his own pen to him as a token of appreciation saying, "My compliments to you, sir."

John goes back to his room shouting and moaning madly from his window, "I can't fail, I can't fail." And that very evening, he invents the game theory which flies in the face of a hundred years of economic theory created by Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. The dean tells him as John shows his findings, "Well, Mr. Nash, with a breakthrough of this magnitude, you will get any placement you like." John gets placed at the MIT that very day.

Having heard this story, it certainly seems that the hunger for recognition and accomplishment, the hunger to be appreciated can see wonders happen. 

But lately, I have come to doubt this.

Sometimes, when you work really worrying as to whether your work is getting noticed, recognized or appreciated or not, it can actually hamper your productivity. As most of the time, you would find that it's not. No one seems to care about recognizing or appreciating your work these days and that's the bitter truth. They are all busy meeting their own agendas and targets. That fairness in judgement of talent has seen a sharp decline. 

Think of how Aamir has remained a winner of Filmfare awards only twice while his rival Shah Rukh Khan has won it eight times which is a record that he shares with the like of Dilip Kumar. Aamir feels that awards like IIFA, Filmfare and many other Indian television awards are not genuine and lack credibility because the awards are given by them not basis people's talent or performance but their popularity. He says, "The fact is that I have no objections to film awards per se. I just feel that if I am not valued by an organization I don't value it as well and I won't attend the ceremony either." It was the year 1995 and the film was Rangeela. That was the last time when Aamir appeared for a Filmfare award ceremony. His performance in Rangeela was ignored that year for Shah Rukh's more popular performance in the film, The Braveheart Will Take the Bride, more famously known as Dilwaale Dulhaniyaa Le Jaayenge. That did it for him. He decided that he would rather focus on his craft than expect anything from some agenda driven award ceremony. Good decision, of course because since then Aamir has given us films like Lagaan, which became India's third nominated film for the Oscars, Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par and Ghazini, the film that set the 100 crore hit trend in India. He has also given us a show like Satyamev Jayate which sparked social change here in India, gained international attention and also got him on the cover of Time Magazine.

I think that this seeking of appreciation that we do from some quarters is just as ridiculous and vain as trying to control other's behavior. The more time we spend thinking when we would get appreciated, the more time we are losing out on getting quality work done. Let's face it. The world is becoming more thankless and ungrateful by the day. It is not likely to get better anytime soon. Be ready to remain unrecognized. But do that gem of a work anyways. Be the Michelangelo of your craft. That's all you can control. And I think that once we lose all expectation of praise can we really perform at our best. The idea should not be to become popular. The idea should be to achieve great results. To pursue perfection in our endeavors. That's when we can operate without fear too. The fear of ruffling a few feathers along the way. George Bernard Shaw said, "The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people." 

Very often, I hear this excuse from people. Who cares? Who is going to notice my work anyways? Well, if no one else does, you know that you have done a great job, don't you? Emerson put it beautifully when he said, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." 
I came across an Italian phrase recently, 'Per Chi'. It means 'for whom'. For whom are we doing it all then? Maybe, just for our own bloody satisfaction. Because everyone else is busy meeting their own agendas. And no one seems to have the time or care to notice. And we know that life is short. And like Steve Jobs said, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Steve once said, "I want to put a ding in the universe." Now like him, if you want to aim big, then focus on the big picture. Stop expecting anything from anyone and just be totally operational in effecting real change. And be ruthless and intensely paranoid to make that change happen. I believe that this is the only point from where we would start to change the world. When we stop caring for what others think and make a difference keeping no one's recognition but our own in mind. It's a little difficult. But that's just how it is.