Criminal vs Accuser

You could own half of the world’s wealth or be the head of a country. You could scale the highest mountain top or find a cure to cancer. Just take a moment to understand how you would have felt right then. Would you feel happy? Scared? Grateful maybe? Satisfied?

 It would take a life’s work to do all these great things. You can’t scale a mountain without taking your first step. Or find a cure to a terminal illness without starting your research. You may have many reasons on why you have embarked on this journey in the first place. But was the reason still the same now that you have reached the pinnacle as compared to when you have first started? It doesn’t have to be such huge accomplishments. It could be smaller noble things like enrolling in your dream course, get a job you’ve always wanted or elected leader of a community project. Is your motivation to excel the same as when you first worked for it?

 Some say some people are made for great things in life. But great things don’t always come from the greatest of people. The value of humanity is not based on your accomplishments or the power you have. It is the ability to understand the people around you and understand that if given the same exposure as you had, there is always someone who could have done it even better than you. Let's use the analogy of a criminal and those who despises him. What if the criminal, understood the hatred these people have for him and forgive them for their anger? What if he accepts that he was in the wrong? Those who revile him may not understand why he commit those crimes. They chose to judge him on his actions based on the law and not as a human being.

If you ask me, who is wrong? I would say it’s the criminal for many obvious reasons. He had committed a crime even if he had some good reason for that and to a smaller degree, the critics too are wrong for their ignorance. But clearly, the criminal has a greater level of humanity in him than all those who had despised him for the simple fact that he had put himself in the shoes of the people around him first. The criminal had chosen to treat everyone to be his equal but yet, there are people who looks down on him. Condemn the action, not the man. 

I am not saying that you can’t be the greatest of the greatest. You should if you can. Don’t the world need more people who strives to better themselves? However, the question that you should be asking isn’t what can I achieve? Rather, what can I give to the people around me as an equal once I've achieved these things? Remember, no one wants your pity just because you have accomplished something they have not. They need your understanding and acknowledgement. Even if they don’t know it themselves