I have often wondered about a peculiar question :

Is “ideal” necessarily “impractical” ?

There was a time in life when we as a community used to call something ideal when we had to aspire to achieve it, and when it was deemed as worth achieving. But every day that goes by, I get the feeling that we now pass off something as “ideal” only when we wish to consider it as “impractical” – and not even try to achieve it ! And that is a scary thought…

It does not augur well for our future, that our society regards most of what is ideal as impractical. It lowers the bar on most things in life worth fighting for. And every thing we have today, we owe to people striving towards a higher goal. Not settling for that which came easily to them.

But today, we don’t even try for it. We just dismiss it off as “too ideal”. And with that goes most things worth achieving. And that is a scary thought. Because, intentionally or not, we will pass on these values to our children. And our children’s children. And in doing so, we will set in motion a downward spiral, resulting in the death of values as we know it.

I know someone of you will think : Naa, this guy’s just paranoid. But think about it. What happens when we see small instances of wrong-doing in our own lives and disregard it as “a way of life”? What happens when we hear of a business practice that seems unfair on the face of it, but convince ourselves that it is, after all, a business and must make profits to survive? What happens when we face issues that affect the entire world, but are no one’s responsibility? What do we do about global warming, environmental pollution, a bureaucratic government, corrupt politicians, the population explosion, and disappearing rainforests?

And the problems don’t even need to be so big. We face difficult situations all the time. We are forever at the crossroads of deciding which path to take – the right one or the easy one. And yet all of us, almost always, take the easy way out. Sure, we justify it by telling ourselves : “Life is hard enough as it is, and I don’t need to take on additional troubles.” Some of us even rationalise it by saying : Life has been hard to me, and I deserve this much of wrong-doing ! Still others convince themselves by saying : “This is not a one-man task and I will not get the support of others on it. So let me not even try.” So where does it all end? If it all, it does…

I say we give the other path a try. For once, let us try and do something, because it is simply worth doing. Let us at least give it a shot, and then say : I tried, but it didn’t work. Let us at least try to achieve the ideal… We just might achieve it !

I know there is no such thing as the perfect world. And I am not aiming for one. But I sincerely believe that the world would be so much better a place if we aimed for the sky and not landed the stars, but didn’t fall on the ground either…