Success vs. Joy
- XXIX -
Fame
Fame is an experience created by society and the media who come together and decide that a particular activity or person is worthy of their interest. Suddenly you are famous. What have you done in this act of becoming famous? You have excelled in a particular activity.
You were able to excel because you were committed to a cause. You were committed completely and persevered in total isolation and derived true joy from that activity. So suddenly if you are the focus of the media and society’s attention, you are famous. But you have little or no control over that fame. So why bother about an outcome over which you have no control. Today it might be cricket, tomorrow it could be cycling, then gulli danda.
A college student once quizzed me on how it felt to be famous. I replied, “I experience the same emotions and feelings that you do. I experience emotions of jealousy, greed, anger, and calmness just like you. Fame is media-created and as I have no control over it, I don’t pay too much attention to it. I derive true joy from the activity that I pursue and not the media’s attention. And I know that the media’s attention is focused on me because of the excellence I have achieved in my discipline. So the important thing for me is continuing to pursue excellence and joy in my sport.”
I suggest that everyone should focus his attention on what he is doing at any given moment in time. Let him focus on playing that perfect stroke and nothing else. It is not as if I manage to play that perfect stroke all the time. But I just keep trying. The joy is in the effort of aligning one’s entire being, not the outcome of the stroke. It is in the trying, not necessarily in the passing of the test.
I have tried not to allow fame to blind me. In fact I think my face on a television screen brings more happiness to my mother than to me. Joy and the sweet spot are far more important than recognition by society. Fame is something that has been thrust on some by a society that cries out for role models and by the media that must, it seems, constantly highlight the achievements of a select few.
Many spend a lifetime of frustration trying to equate success with joy. I have watched this happen to me and seen the results on the table. The game exposes your core. It lets you know who you are and whom you’re true to. Are you true to yourself or to those meaningless desires of fame and fortune?
There are some who work but remain unsung. Their benchmarks of excellence are not splashed across newspapers, their pictures do not appear on television screens. Be that as it may, they are achievers all the same if they are doing what gives them joy. Fame in itself does not bring you joy, it only brings distractions. I believe the ultimate experience is the joy of making a full effort in reaching out to the core within.