Navigating the Maze recognizes that today’s generation (the IGen) comprises impatient digital natives, who pride their individuality and doing things ‘their way’. This book acknowledges and appreciates these traits, and builds up on them. It equips this generation with the self-knowledge and the skills and competencies that help all readers joyfully traverse the challenges and opportunities that they face in a changing world. It also encourages readers to delve into the quiet space within, thereby connecting them with their own interiority and harnessing the vast inner resources to their advantage.
In the course of our many interactions with young men and women over the years, we have grasped that youngsters are keen to live their lives in ways that promote health, happiness, love, relationships, joyful work and prosperity. This is the reason that this book focuses on three critical ideas: self-mastery, interpersonal excellence and the world of work. Introducing the right skills and capabilities in these three important areas of life, youngsters are primed for fast-tracking success.
This book has its roots in a project that we worked on in 1997, while we were in Jamshedpur (Bharat worked for Tata Steel then). At that time we jointly contributed a fortnightly column for The Telegraph that was published from Kolkata. This column was called ‘What You May Not Have Learnt at Business School’ and gave readers in the towns of Eastern India a chance to get insights into the professional, relational and technological issues that they were grappling with. Surprisingly, even 20 years later, many of the same themes remain at the heart of the concerns expressed by young professionals today.
We are confident that if the simple, smarter strategies contained in this book are internalized and put into practice, together they would make a qualitative difference in the lives of people. We have placed emphasis on helping our readers get straight to the essence of what is needed to live a life that is fulfilling and successful. We have also suggested ways of entering the quiet space of our interiority, so that our readers too can plumb into its depths and learn how to live happy, healthy and meaningful lives. This capability is even more in need in this day and age, when messages from advertisers, the noise from sophisticated hucksters promoting ideas or the distractions of a smartphone force us to be in a state of perpetual tension and stress.
The collective influences of an overbearing technology, the constant noise from multiple sources and the pressures on each of us to consume more and more, even as we realize that our planet cannot sustain wanton consumption, have made our lives truly complicated. Getting out of the ‘rat race’ that such a world might stimulate and returning to our lives of health, happiness, love, prosperity and fulfilment calls for opening up to life, by simplifying our relationship with ourselves and our interiority, as well as with everyone and everything that might touch our lives. In doing so, we begin to live life and open up to the things that are truly valuable to us and that make for days well-lived.
We suggest that the ideas in this book be imbibed at a time when you, dear reader, are not distracted. We would even suggest that you find some quiet time, when you are not going to be disturbed, to go through this book. That would help you reflect and understand what we are trying to share with you. Remember, we are not giving you answers to the problems that you, or many other people, might be facing. Instead, we are arming you with the skills, the knowledge, the smarts and the strategies that would make your life worthwhile and successful in the manner in which you choose. The essential tools that we share with you herein will help you enjoy—boldly and confidently—whatever life might offer you, while simultaneously helping you enrich your unique journey.
On our part, we have made this book really simple and easy to read. It is peppered with stories and anecdotes that pithily drive home important truths. Throughout we have tried to offer you the essential implements, the tools and the tackle that you would need to navigate the mysterious maze of life. But above all, we point to the source of the wellspring of pure guidance that your interiority offers you for free.
We appreciate that this book has come into your life with a purpose. It is our firm conviction that as you apply what you learn in this book, it will unclutter things around you in ways that are both uncomplicated and playful. The simple, smarter strategies along with the choices you make would then put you on a fast track to receive in abundance, from the majesty and the glory of life itself.