Expectations, Achievement & Satisfaction

At the Rio Olympics, 2016 PV Sindhu became the first ever Indian shuttler to reach the final and Sakshi Malik became the first female wrestler from our country to win an Olympic medal. Sindhu won silver and Sakshi won bronze. After getting the medals, Sakshi was in seventh heaven but Sindhu was somewhat disappointed, and so were the countrymen as the latter could not strike gold. Sakshi aspired for bronze and got it, but Sindhu was playing for gold and ended up getting silver.

When I studied at the erstwhile Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, students organised annual science exhibitions. The one by Psychology Department was very popular and interesting. I particularly remember an exercise that assessed one’s capability to achieve against self-declared goals. In this game, one pushed a ball on a slope to reach a certain distance. The person undertaking the exercise set the slope and before pushing the ball had to declare the distance the ball was expected to roll. Marks were awarded based on the degree of difficulty and accuracy. Underachievement and overshooting were graded adversely. The idea was to drive home the points that ‘Dissatisfaction’ is directly proportional to ‘expectation’ minus ‘achievement’ and that ‘achievement’ has a strong correlation with ‘potential’ but is not a function of ‘expectation’.

Unfortunately, many times ‘expectations’ are forced upon by external entities without even caring to know the potential, attitude and aptitude of the person concerned: Like parents setting goals for their children, management setting targets for employees, peer groups and society fixing benchmarks for individuals and groups. Many a time self-imposed targets are set way beyond one’s potential, which leads to frustration. With time, ‘expectations’ have also been changing: Gen X (born before 1980) aspired to be self-sufficient, results-oriented and hard-working with a tendency to be quiet achievers. Gen-Y (or Millennials, born between 1981 and 1995), are famously optimistic and believe in the possibility of change. They advocate for environmental and social justice. While for Gen-Z (born after 1997) diversity is the norm, they are pragmatic and financially minded, shrewd consumers and politically progressive.

‘Potential’ can be defined as latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness. It could be inherent to an individual and/or developed over time through experience and endeavour. It is also a function of time, technology and situation: Today, an expert surveyor using Chain and Compass would have no takers unless he switches over to a survey based on Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS). Training on traditional technologies, such as Forest Engineering, Road Alignment, Chain and Compass Survey (ironically, 90 per cent of the probationers are Engineering graduates) are still being imparted at Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA). Earlier, forests were inaccessible and foresters were responsible for constructing roads and buildings inside forests. I wonder if any forest officer on his own has aligned one new road or constructed a building anywhere in the country, in the past three decades. When I served as Director General of Forests in the Government of India, I mooted a proposal, to include climate change and environmental issues, wetland management, and social sciences (peoples’ participation in forest management is an accepted norm of the day) in addition to pure forestry during training at the IGNFA. Amusingly, the proposal was turned down on grounds that other ‘experts’ were available in these fields and IFS officers should focus only on forestry matters! In my view, there is a real need to augment the potential of foresters in these fields and as such, they are already discharging these functions in many states.

‘Achievement’ is something by which people generally judge an individual. My younger daughter Vedika although very smart was never interested in studies. We were worried as she hardly ever studied. She would explain nonchalantly, “What everyone is interested in, is how much I score in the examinations. I know how to get good marks, for that you don’t have to go deep into the subject matter, you only need to know the tricks of answering appropriately.” And, she always secured around 95% in all her exams. However, she is passionate about sports and games and puts a lot of effort into them. She was captain of her school basketball and kho-kho teams and also was adjudged the best sportsperson in the school’s annual sports meet. She said, “95% in academics makes you happy and achievement in sports and games makes me happy.” She pursued playing basketball and was selected for the Junior State Girls’ Basketball team and subsequently for Senior State Women’s Basketball team. These gave her immense satisfaction.

‘Achievement’ is more of a perception. It is dependent on the indices that one uses. Parents, peers, colleagues, and society generally have stereotype yardsticks for measuring success like a ‘good student’ is expected to excel in mathematics, take up science stream after school and get ‘Nirvana’ on joining IIT; no wonder about 70% of the candidates chosen for Indian Civil Service are engineering graduates. A good-looking person is supposed to be tall and fair-complexioned; so many film stars shamelessly extoll the virtues of a fair complexion while modelling for fairness creams. A good officer is one who maintains an imposing demeanour in public; therefore, many bureaucrats move around with their noses in the air. You just cannot convince monkeys that honey is sweeter than bananas.

Mathematically, ‘dissatisfaction’ is ‘expectation’ minus ‘achievement’; a measure of frustration on failing to achieve vis-à-vis expectations. The likelihood of ‘dissatisfaction’ is more if ‘expectation’ is pitched beyond ‘potential’. One is considered lucky if one is more ‘successful’ than his/her ‘perceived potential’; some consider me to be lucky. However, I have always believed that ‘satisfaction’ is quite distinct from success. ‘Satisfaction’ comes from within and gives peace of mind whereas, ‘success’ is a measure as per societal norms and it only caters to one’s ego. So far, by the grace of God, I have been satisfied in my professional career and personal life and perhaps never bothered about how successful I have been.