Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Congrats, You won a lottery Ticket


Prologue
Warren Buffet on Life in his usual inimical witty style.
Imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes to you and says that you get to design how the world will be before you enter it.You say, 'That sounds great. But what's the catch?' The genie says, 'There is only one catch. You will go to that barrel over there filled with 6billiontickets. You will pick one ticket at random, and that ticket will define who you will be in your world. It could say male; it could say female.Itcould say you will be born in the U.S.; it could say you will be born inBangladesh. It could say black; it could say white. It could sayintelligent; it could say retarded. It could say rich; it could saypoor.
'You should design the world in a way that is independent of what ticket you get.You got your ticket. If you now had the chance to pick 100 tickets from that barrel, but you had to give up your current life and to be one of the hundred picked, would you do it? Chances are, maybe 4 or 5 of thehundredwill say you will be born in the U.S. Maybe one will say you are above average intelligence. Maybe one will say you have above average income.Would you play? [pauses] ...Of course you wouldn't. You wouldn'tplay,which means you are in the top 1% of society. We are so lucky; most people in the world would give anything to play."
The Main Act:
Cut to the movie Bedazzled by Harold Ramis.A loaded Comedy.
Elliot Richards, a nerdy low-level technical advisor, makes a deal with the Devil (who happens to be a gorgeous woman, Liz Hurley ) to fulfill his wildest dreams of becoming rich, powerful and sexy. In exchange for his soul, the Devil temptress grants him seven wishes but they backfire. After asking to be rich, powerful and married to Alison, Elliot is transformed overnight into a Colombian drug lord. After wishing to become the "most sensitive man in the world," he ends up a sniveling, driveling fool. Even wishes to become a rock and roll superstar and basketball powerhouse don't pan out.He becomes US president as Abraham Lincoln soon to be assassinated.All the seven wishes turn out to be nightmarish forcing him to run to the devil to wriggle out of the contract.In the end he discovers himself in his current form with all his strengths and weaknesses and finds his dreamgirl .
Amazingly, bothe Harold Ramis and Warren Buffet say quite a lot in their own unique style of story telling format.In a hugely entertaining way oneis reminded of the bliss of current existence vis a vis imaginary life of rich and powerful as everyonesecretly covets.
Epilogue
One is born with a ticket and thats the best ticket. One could be rich and cancerous.I one could be healthy but poor.One could be successful and yet unhappy.One could be married and without child.One could be rich, educated ,healthy, successful and still in trouble.There is no ideal romanticised life situation better than the existing one .What matters is what you do with the existing life potential than live in the fantasy of concocted imaginative life wish.You have already win the lottery ticket.Go ahead and make the most of it.
Indeed,You should design the world in a way that is independent of what ticket you get.

3 comments:

natbas said...

Thanks for the excellent post.

Regards,

Aditya Ajmera said...

Congratulations, you too one a lottery ticket by posting a excellent article.

itsakash4u said...

so true,so fair..Very nice nd motivational, specially for youngsters. I will definatly made my frieds read it.