Only If

Only If.....                                                                                                         

I was working on an assignment and had to make some mathematical calculations. They could be easily done with MS Excel. However, they were not impossible just with simple scientific calculator. Unfortunately MS Excel was not installed on my computer. 

I thought if Excel CD was purchased, then it might be very easy to do the assignment. I rushed to the market and purchased MS Xp Office 2004 edition. During installation, a message widow popped out explaining that there was a problem with the CD and MS Office could not be installed. I thought to swap the CD for new one whenever I happen to go to the market and procrastinated the calculations until then. The next day I managed to go to the market only late at night. When I got there, the shop was closed.

I came back in despair and decided to defer the calculations for one more day. Next day afternoon, I went to the shop and swapped the corrupted CD with new one. During installation of the new CD, the same message widow popped out again. I could do nothing else other than to go again and change the CD for some other Edition. This time I brought MS Office 2003 Edition that worked well. However, what I could have done with simple calculator got delayed unnecessarily for 3 days. 

This is only one example of our inclination towards dependency on "If situations. "If I had more time, I would have done that better", "if I had something better than that, I could have performed well We are easily driven away by the non-available resources from what we can do, with our available resources, power, or energy. Something not in hand seems so enticing, so attractive that we assume that its very existence is vital for the completion of a specific task though there maybe many good alternatives or substitutes to it. This may be because of the basic nature of humans that they search for short-cuts to get to a point or may be because of the habit of putting off things for tomorrow and hence looking for justifications (yes we do seek justifications for our laziness to satisfy our own selves if no one else). Whatever the reasons may be dependency on "if situation shows lack of initiatives. It shows that we are passive towards our situations. It shows that we are driven by our situations. The flow of a situation in opposite direction is not a valid reason/justification to be in East if you were supposed to be in West. One should be driven by his objectives not by the given situations. 

Attaullah Shah

January 2006