Discipline
Culture,Life & Love

EMBRACE THE LONG ROAD – or EMBARK ON SHORTCUTS.

Picking between embracing the long road or taking shortcuts depends on individual goals, values and prioritisation.

The long road, a path for those who value growth, learning, and resilience, shapes character and adds depth and meaning to success. Though challenging, this journey leads to a more substantial and authentic form of success.

When time is critical, resources are limited, or a faster path still aligns with principles and long-term goals, embarking on shortcuts can be the choice.

 Like a double-edged sword, shortcuts can lead to success or regret. The key is to carefully weigh the trade-offs before choosing. While they may seem attractive, not all shortcuts are worth taking, as they can compromise the beauty and value of the journey.

While shortcuts may save time and effort, they can compromise the integrity or worth of outcomes. By bypassing essential learning and growth experiences, shortcuts can lead to disappointment, harm, or long-term setbacks.

Choosing a long road involves challenges that build resilience, skill and wisdom. Overpowering these hurdles shapes character and brings a profound sense of accomplishment. This confirms mastering the craft, understanding the complexities, and learning from past experiences to face future challenges. Accomplishments with steady effort have a sturdier foundation and are less prone to collapse under pressure. The journey is rewarding and brings a deep sense of fulfilment, adding richness to your life and shaping who you become.

Investing in relentless effort minimises the risk of looking back with regret. The long road, though requiring patience, often leads to success that is not just about reaching the peak but also about the person you become along the journey.

 

Are shortcuts always beautiful and worth taking in life? Is life about taking shortcuts to reach the zenith?

It is fun to trek to Mussoorie from Dehradun by shortcut as it saves time and unfurls breathtaking, nascent, and virgin nature. However, the longer road journey can miss the stunning scenery.

Gray’s Anatomy, the Bible of Anatomy, is a voluminous, heavy book that is hard to hold and time-consuming to read. Other shortcut books are available, which are easy and good enough to pass the exam, but they compromise the elaborate details and immense knowledge about the subject. By opting for shortcuts in studies, what breed of professionals will churn out?

There is an enduring rat race to reach the top. Whether principles and ideals are compromised or molested, the idea is to make it big and quick. The keywords to juggle for the pinnacle are Opportunism and Impatience.

 There are two ways to reach the top –

*First, stay in the rat race and try to rubberneck, push, and use all tactics to get the lead.

*The second is to evade the commotion, opt for the uncustomary longer route, and scale the summit with an authentic and affirmative approach full of zeal, self-respect, and vigour.

In life, most shortcuts take longer than the longer routes. There are many shortcuts to failure but no shortcuts to real success.

Ashwin graduated from a prestigious engineering Institute, and a multinational company offered him a decent job. He had the doors open to join the roaring family oil business. However, he had a different vision and launched a start-up company with meagre finances. The challenges were daunting, but Ashwin was determined to slog and endure initial setbacks and obstacles; he excelled and proved his accountability. He denied taking the shortcut to success but opted for a longer route that eventually proved his self-worth.

“What comes easy won’t last; what lasts won’t come easy.”

Taking shortcuts saves time, but cutting corners on one task leads to cutting corners on another and then another, weakening the heart. Then, in the end, who is the loser?

 

Shortcuts come into play when building relationships.

When it comes to relationships, we often take shortcuts in our judgments. We may rush into friendships, getting impressed and opening up too quickly, only to regret it later. This superficial approach needs more wisdom and can lead to disappointment. It’s important to take the time to truly understand people and situations rather than making quick, superficial judgments.

Potential consequences of shortcuts in relationships can be –

*Avoiding active communication and assuming the partner knows your feelings — can lead to misunderstandings.

*Jumping to emotional intimacy without building trust — can lead to emotional overwhelm.

*Ignoring red flags and overlooking signs of incompatibility to avoid conflicts — can lead to toxic dynamics with heartbreaks.

*Doing things for appearance rather than genuine connection, fostering shallow alliances.

*Assuming instead of asking and guessing what the partner wants.

However, a profound and more rational longer route can promise a better foundation of relationships by investing time in cultivating trust, communicating openly, actively working through conflicts, and revealing one’s true self by being patient and compassionate.

 A quick response to a relationship can be likened to Allopathy-it provides fast results but may have serious side effects. On the other hand, a delayed reaction is like Ayurvedic medicine- it’s affirmative, long-lasting, and has no side effects. This analogy serves as a reminder that patience is a virtue, especially in relationships.

Anything that goes up faster comes down even faster.

 

The acid test of following a shortcut or devoting time comes during tying nuptial knots.

The more time is devoted to understanding and fathoming intellect and emotional depth, the better the chances of a long-lasting and profound marital bond. Short-cut marriages consummated under peer pressure or a shortage of time are full of risks and glitches as there is no time to comprehend each other.

Life is not a Derby race. Taking shortcuts becomes a habit, and people start implementing this in everything, be it studies, careers, or relationships. Parents’ vital duty is to instil the importance of hard work and diligence in their children.

My mother, a teacher, discouraged me from taking shortcuts and studying only the crucial chapters. She trained me to do cover-to-cover right from my schooling. This became a habit, and later on, I swallowed thick volumes of medicine page by page. Interestingly, all the questions should be attempted with no choice during the exams. No wonder, in medical practice, we can’t select a patient’s disease based on our preferences. Moreover, treating them with shortcuts can be hazardous and unethical.

 

“When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts.”

 

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4 Comments

  1. You are right Anuj,Short cut is not worth our life. This write up is the need of the time. The narrative ” ease of living” has somehow got us to do too many things in a day, and also running out of time… still there are many getting into the details without getting cowed down by time constraints. That’s the attitude !!
    Inspite of knowing the dangers of short cuts people go for it and get away too. Short cuts are mostly adopted by those who are confident about the correctness of their assumption. The Judges or the senior lawyers just take few minutes to understand the dispute that could have been created by too many disagreements. The doctors too at times prescribe a broad spectrum medicine to save their time. Infact even the patient is happy spending less time getting treated.
    Yes you are right in case of human relations, they are always built with time and details, short cuts don’t work. But the irony exists in interviewing candidates , short cuts are used.Human judgements in a jiffy.😄😄
    In my opinion short cut is like jumping peak to peak and declaring covering the whole mountain range. How much one skips here is what is actually skipped.

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      I like the last line of your write up….. jumping from peak to peak thinking that you have scaled the summits.
      In life, we all take short cuts but are they always helpful?
      In the digital and virtual world where the language and the grammar are changing, well can’t say where we are leading to.
      I still prefer taking the longer route when I can. I love the journey because I don’t care about the destination that keeps shifting.
      thanks for your views
      regards

  2. […] “It takes nothing to join the crowd – it takes everything to stand alone.“ […]

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      true, it takes a world to be on the top…alone.

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