The Human and the Being

The world has become very small for everyone to fit in, and these days it's the survival of the fittest and the fastest. Life has become a rat race. Everyone in this world is trying to run faster than the rest. Some of them choose a direction for themselves to run and there are some who just run because others are running in that direction. Despite not knowing what they are running behind/after, they just think that when everyone is running they better be fast to lead the race. A journey which started with being a mere 'following the crowd' transforms into a race and then a war. And this is where everyone starts saying "Everything's fair in war'.

The corporate world is just another race. The first organization of a specific field was started to satisfy a need and the rest came either to prove themselves better or to just grab a share of the pie. But then it just didn't stop there. The greed increased and the follower wanted to become the leader and soon the jargons like Market Share, Share of Wallet, Bottom Line, Margins..etc came into existence. Everything changed into numbers. Right from the employees to the customers (both existing and prospective) everyone became numbers. If an employee joined you added a number, if you added a customer you multiplied a number, if more people joined the numbers were divided and when an opportunity was lost a number was subtracted. When everything becomes a number then there is no value for the humans.

These numbers are slowly rearranged to form a series just like a Fibonacci so that the next has to be atleast equal to the two of its predecessors. The new employee has to surpass the numbers of the previous person, the existing employee has to surpass his own. One might say that these are all challenges that one needs to take up, and I don't deny it either. But at what cost? Employee Number 27: "It's my son's b'day, I need a holiday", Employee Number 10(he came before no. 27): "You cannot get a leave you have a number to achieve and if you don't, your favourite number (salary) will not be increased. It is tough at the intial stage to cope up with this, but gradually one gets used to these numbers and in few years this very Employee Number 27 who was a human before would tell his subordinate say Employee Number 75: "You cannot get a leave for your sickness as you have a number to achieve and you better achieve it by hooks OR by crooks or....."

When asked about what kind of creatures we are, we unanimously say we are Human Beings, but "Where is the Human left in the being?" Right from schools to jobs to the government everyone is behind a number. Marks in schools, Financial jargons in jobs and Votes to Money in politics. Parents not just bothered about their kids' marks, they are also bothered about the rest and want their kid to get the most. Fair Enough!! But at what cost? Companies want to do well and want their employees to do the best. Fair Enough!! But at what cost? Right from grabbing the maximum votes to making money is every damn possible way without even bothering about the people who voted. Fair Enough!! BUT AT WHAT COST?

If we don't treat ourselves and the rest as Human Beings then where is the Human? And when we are just like some other creatures, "What is the pride in calling ourselves just a Being?"