Competence is very crucial in today’s world. If we do not possess sufficient knowledge, judgement and skills it will be hard to perform well at our workplaces. These days a lot of emphasis is being put upon building new and variety of skills. Quite frankly, it makes sense because we are living in an era where nothing stays the same for very long. Every now and then things are changing rapidly due to constant innovations in science and technology. And if we can’t keep pace with such innovations and keep ourselves competent enough to land a good job, survival will be very hard.
What about character?
Does it matter in a world that pressurizes us to put our whole energy into building our skills and careers? Or simply, it doesn’t matter at all?
From my limited experience of the way this world works, I believe people do not give much thought to building their characters. Everyone is busy in a rat race. Everyone wants to be ahead of everyone else. It looks like people are losing their basic human values including kindness, gratitude, love, forgiveness, etc. Building a good character is not primary anymore. Rather it has become secondary.
Tasks either reflect competence or character
Jay Shetty who is a former monk, coach, author and a podcast host has written his first book titled “Think like a Monk”. In one of the chapters, he talked about how tasks that we do on a daily basis either reflect our competence or character. If I am an academician and I am focusing on improving my critical skills, statistical skills and teaching skills then my job will be a reflection of my competence. This will show that I am skilled at my work. What about jobs/tasks that are not related to our work? Like washing dishes, cleaning the washroom, brooming, doing grocery every week, etc. Do they not reflect our competence? They might do but more importantly they reflect our character. We undermine these tasks thinking they are below our level and why should we waste our time doing them when we could be doing something more important like making another report or studying.
In one of my previous blog posts I wrote about me doing all the household work alongside my mother. All this time I felt frustrated from time to time because I had this belief that I was just wasting my time. I felt I should be investing my time in doing something more important and better like learning new skills. But after understanding that some tasks actually help in shaping our character I realized I have been so wrong about my perception. I might read a chapter of a book in the time I am doing household chores. As it turns out, life is not simply about making myself the most competent person but also building a good character.
Look, a broom is trying to teach you something
While listening to an audio book by Jay Shetty I came across a very valuable point he made in his book. He said while he was a monk in an ashram in India he learned the importance of exhibiting flexibility through a broom. And he is very much right because we can learn that lesson too. When we are trying to clean our houses using a broom we often forget that without showing some flexibility it will be very hard for it to do its job. It is so interesting to realize that a broom is only able to reach the corners of our houses because it is flexible.I believe every task that we belittle is trying to teach us something. We need to change our perspectives. That’s all.
It is a good thing if we are millionaires. After all we deserve to be because we had worked very hard for it. Being financially stable is very important because lives cannot be sustained without money. We need money to fulfill our basic requirements. And we can be financially independent if we land a good job. Good jobs can be landed if we show the company/organization that we will be valuable at work. To be able to show our worth we actually have to be worthy and our worth is a result of our competence. However, we must never forget our worth is not limited to our skills and workplaces. Being someone of a good character should be one of life’s purposes too.