Idealism is DEAD

Idealism is DEAD

Not long ago, if you were an IDEALIST, you deserved a homecoming parade when you go back to your place.  You will be the TOAST of the TOWN where politicians and kibitzers will be hobnobbing with you, eager to prey on the next photo ops.  But that was long ago before the pundits relentlessly pounded on the hollowed and misguided trajectory of the idealists.  These days, try it and you will become 'toast'.

For those idealists whose respective journey became ill-fated ones, they were very much aligned and 'in sync' except that they opted out of the WHAT IFs in our life.  They left no quarters open to entertain those WHAT IFs.  Nothing wrong with their optimism but more often, such optimism goes overboard, way and beyond.  Nothing wrong with ignoring pessimism but totally shunning it off will be a stretch.

If there's one thing we should not replicate in our lives, it's the horse's blinders.  But remember, those galloping horses were fitted with blinders not to blind them but instead, to keep their focus straight across their path as they are vulnerable to disruptions and distractions.  Sounds familiar to us humans ?  Those vulnerability to disruptions and distractions ?

A decade ago, I was working on a daily basis with the CIO of HSBC India as we were sharing the same office for a year and when we were in the midst of planning for capex proposals, he was quite vociferous in standing his ground that  we can paint what we want, all the ideal technology infrastructures that offers us the best of both worlds but the question that always stomped us was this:  Are we willing to wait for 3-5 yrs to achieve all the ideal plans when we can push for a realistic rollout in 2-3 yrs?

That American dream, who doesn't cherish those dreams ?  As the cliche goes, America is the land of milk and honey, literally and figuratively speaking.  And would you believe, I have first-hand knowledge of quite a number of people whose lives have been in a standstill [after several decades] simply because they are so glued at that ideal dream, that dream of becoming an American immigrant one day.  But is that acceptable ?  Our lives will be in 'suspended' mode as we wait for our ideal dream to shape up ?  What does all these tell us ?  That being idealist is laudable to hear BUT having an "ALL or NOTHING"  mindset will be self-defeating because it can cause you a setback where any hopes for you to rebound from that FREE FALL can happen.  In fact, once you get into that FREE FALL, we can agree that IDEALISM is DEAD. ❗❗❗