HOPE 4: Why are hopefuls not always aspiring?

While hope is extremely important it is not sufficient. Hope needs to be converted to aspiration.

I will again take an example from India. Considering the blind faith in the God and hoping that God will take care of everything – all problems, miseries and rewards, a very big proportion of Indian population is hopeful. However this very faith makes them complacent as they believe that God will decide as to what they should be given and what they should be denied. They also believe that their miseries and rewards are a consequence of their Karmas (deeds) in previous life. So despite being hopeful people do not aspire for material possessions- a good life style, good education or even good health. This fatalistic attitude leads to lack of aspiration and lack of action.

The satisfaction with current state is also driven from lack of awareness about rest of the world. This has been mitigated to some extent by the advent of Television and Internet. However, this is limited to cities and towns. A lot of villages in India, and also some towns and cities, rarely get power supply. So the availability of Television and Internet reduces significantly. There is also an element of affordability in villages. I was reading a book - “A Comma in a Sentence: Extraordinary change in an ordinary family over six generations”. In his book Mr R Gopalakrishnan narrates his conversation in 2007 with his only surviving uncle, living in his village. His Uncle took him aside and said, “I understand you are doing very well and are in a top job with the Tata Group. I believe you are earning quite a lot. It must be more than INR 30,000 (USD 500) a month.” That helps establish my point about lack of awareness. This leads to lack of Aspiration.

 

When people in the USA were very hopeful, they were aspiring as well. Their aspiration for materialistic possession drove professional aspiration. This led to significant hard work and action in the USA in the last two centuries making it the largest economy in the world.

While being hopeful is good, hope should result in aspiration before one can see action.

So let us discuss: When and why do people aspire?