A long time
ago one of my friends told me a story. I don’t recall it exactly so I am going
to put it down in my words. There was this smart professor at a college. One
day he took all his students to a sugarcane field and told them that in order
to make the best quality sugar, you need to have the best quality sugarcane.
The best quality sugarcane is the one which is the tallest. He turned to one
student and he said to him “Peter, go find the tallest sugarcane you can find
so that you can make the best sugar out of it. But be advised, you are not to
pick up a sugarcane on your way back. Once you have moved on from a cane, you
cannot come back to it. You need to pick the cane on your way forward and
whichever you chose, you would bring it back. ” The fellow was obviously
overwhelmed by the task, because standing in front of him was a field full of
tall sugarcanes. So he entered the field tentatively. He found one cane that
was quite tall. But he thought that I have just entered the field, there will
be many more canes taller than this one. So he proceeded ahead. Once again he
came across a sugarcane which was taller than any he had yet seen. But once
again he thought that there would be another one taller than this one ahead. This
went on for a while, where he kept rejecting the tall canes in hopes of finding
a much taller cane ahead until he reached the end of the field. There he
realized that now he can’t go back, so he found the tallest one at the edge and
came back out of the field. The professor along with his students were standing
there waiting for him. The young boy sheepishly gave the sugarcane to the
professor. The professor then went on to measure the length of the cane. “This
cane is 5 foot 3 inches tall. I can stand here and see canes much taller than
this. Anyways stand aside.”
He then
asked another boy Charlie to go into the field and gave him the same exact
instructions. Charlie stepped into the
field confidently and within 10 minutes he came back carrying a sugarcane. The
professor measured this one and announced that this was 5 foot 8 inches tall. The
professor turned to him and said “even though you have brought one of the taller
canes in the field but I know for a fact that there is 6 foot 5 inches cane in
the field. How is it that I sent two guys in to get it and neither one of you
came out with it?”
Both of the
students were embarrassed and suddenly found something interesting to stare at
on the ground. The professor started laughing. He said “don’t worry guys. This
was not a test but an exercise in practicality. There are two types of people
in this world. The first type who keep on rejecting every good thing they come
across in hopes of finding a much better one somewhere in the future, but when
they reach the end of the road, they settle for something far less than what
they had rejected. Such people end up regretting their stupidity and lead an
unsatisfying life. Peter here, did emulate such people almost exactly. Then
there is the other category of people who learn from other people’s mistakes.
Charlie here saw how Peter screwed his assignment up and went into the field
and found the first tallest cane he could find and brought it back. He knew
that he needed to find one which was taller than what Peter had brought. You could
see it from their demeanors when they came out of the field. One the one hand
Peter came out looking troubled, Charlie came out like he had just won a
championship. These other type of people, they recognize a good thing when they
see one. Even though they know that there is something better out there, they don’t
throw away a good thing just because they may or may not find something better
in the future. They may not enjoy the best things in life, but the point is
that they enjoy whatever they have.”
Regret is
the one thing that poisons the well called Life and complicates what is already
quite difficult. Every day we face millions of decisions, where we chose
different things without even thinking about it. But then we take some
decisions which we have to think about. And that is where we get to choose
whether we act like the first category of people or the second one. Today we
are standing at the cusp of a new era where everything is changing rapidly. So
when you make a business decision, you already know that in a few months’ time
it will be the wrong one. What is
considered cutting edge today may be termed obsolete tomorrow. So already
regret the decision even before it is made. But in personal life, it is your
decisions that cause changes and not some external factors. We keep on chasing
perfection in an imperfect world and more often than not end up feeling regret.
So instead of choosing regret over happiness, why don’t we cherish what we have?
Afterall
even the tallest sugarcane has to be crushed in order to make it into sugar
just like all the other not-so-tall ones.
