Exploring Possibilities: Four R's For Life
Diwali is by far the biggest festival in India. It is a festival where Indian, especially Hindus, plan their annual holidays and visits to relatives. From Dhanteras, Naraka Chaturdasi, Lakshmi Puja, Govardhan Puja, to Bhai Doojlot, buying happens and this market activity helps even the poorest or neglected sections of society make some money through legitimate means.
It starts with Dhantrayodashi, where Hindus worship Lord Kubera and Goddess Laxmi. People consider this an auspicious day to buy gold, silver, clothes, gadgets etc. Not only that, people go out on a shopping spree, with the profound belief that new shopping is extremely auspicious on this day. It's carnival time for retail shops all across India, especially north.
This is followed by the second day of the festival, called narak Chaturdashi, when people clean their houses of impurities. They clean, wash and ensure that there is not a single particle of dust in their home. People wake up early and apply aromatic oils on them before taking a bath. This is said to remove all sins and impurities.
Once accomplished people offer Pooja and light the lamp and express their happiness by bursting crackers. Third day is Lakshmi Pooja when people decorate their house. They also visit each other's house and exchange gifts, wishes, appreciation and concerns.
Four R’s of life are Receive, Reject, Retain, Reorganize. It says that if we need to enhance our lives, we need to receive new things. Those can be new learnings, new prospects, new projects, new clothes, new clients, so on and so forth.
Well, my motive here is not to mention the chronology of the festival, which I guess most of us know. More important thing on which I want to draw your attention is the correlation between the festival and four 'R’s effective strategy for our lives. This strategy or concept was developed by modern management gurus, but the application of the same evolved a lot earlier in our ancient scriptures in the form of the festival. Let us understand how.
Four R’s of life are Receive, Reject, Retain, Reorganize. It says that if we need to enhance our lives, we need to receive new things. Those can be new learnings, new prospects, new projects, new clothes, new clients, so on and so forth. The word “new” brings a fresh perspective in our life. Imagine when we wear a new dress, it makes us feel great. A new client or customer enhances our speed of action.
New means more energy. It brings us to motion. Now if we keep on receiving new things, they will keep on piling and make our life experience heavy. Hence we need to reject the old ones. Rejection will clean away all the old stocks. These rejections also include old mindsets, paradigms, irrelevant and dogmatic rituals, which make the experience of life heavy and loathsome. But not all old mindsets and paradigms are irrelevant.
Many of them are universal and pass the test of time. These are the one’s which need to be retained, which is the third 'R'. We need to apply our intelligence to differentiate between reject and retain. All those principles, values and beliefs that are applicable and are in accordance with the contemporary needs to be retained.
Now once we have received new things, rejected and retained the old ones, our entire system gets disturbed. Hence the fourth “R” is required here. That is Reorganize. This is required to give a neatness, order and uniformity to ourselves. It actually makes our life experience easy and enjoyable. We all know that an unorganized system is less efficient. When we reorganize our self, we can make the best of all that we have received and retained, and hence we create an enhanced version of self.
Imagine that we purchase a new set of furniture for our house, which implies the first ‘R’ that is receiving. Then we clean the place where we need to keep it and sell off the old one to make a place to accommodate it. This implies the second ‘R’ that is rejected. Now obviously we do not sell away all the furniture. Those which match with the current scheme of things, are not disposed of. This implies the third ‘R’ that is Retain. Now we have the situation with some new furniture, with some old one removed, new space and the set of retained one. This will bring the fourth ‘R’ in action, that is Reorganize.
It is quite evident now how the Four ‘R’ of life have its coincidental reflection in the ancient festival of Diwali. So, ladies and gentlemen, our modern management gurus and ancient scriptures, both have done their job and it is now our chance to insert the 4 Rs of Receive, Reject, Retain and Reorganize into our life on a dynamic basis and keep on exploring Possibilities…