Welcome 2012, raising intellectual capacity

By M.M. Goel

To extend New Year’s greetings to the readers of The Korea Times, I wish to express my concerns for the bright future toward peace, progress and prosperity through practical, productive and proper use of hands, head and heart.

To welcome 2012 with hope and change in the mindset, we need to be optimistic through understanding God as creator, maintainer and destroyer of the universe as world government. God is omnipotent with no limits, no beginning and no end.

We need to enhance our limited intellectual capacity to fathom God who appears to us as we imagine and approach him for redressing our problems. God looks upon us with kindness as he is simple and knows about everyone of us, whereas we will never be able to comprehend him in totality. None of the descriptions about God is complete. One need not search God in religious places but within oneself.

We need to experience God instead of research and discovery in a complex world of materialism full of miseries. To uplift ourselves, we need to become detached from the materialism of greed and confine ourselves to the need for increasing propensity to save and invest, which is the requirement of the day to cope with the fear (false evidence appearing real) of the so called global economic crisis.

A close reading of the book “Don't Eat the Marshmallow Yet” by Joachim de Posada and Ellen Singer (2005) motivated me to motivate others around the world including Korea and India. It reveals the secrets of sweet success in work and life.

Marshmallow-resistance is more than just a theory; it is a way of life. How do you achieve it? Use valuable principles of success including applied knowledge as power, wait for the right moment, keep promises and think long term. To get what we want from people, they must have a desire to help us as they must trust us.

The best way to get people to do what we want is to impress them. Successful people are willing to do things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Success depends on what we are willing to do today in order to become successful tomorrow. Eat meals at home, spend less money, reduce entertainment expenditure and remain positive to keep focused.

True sustainable success can only come with patience, perseverance and a steady eye on one's long term goal. Practice the lessons presented in the book (there is a promise by the authors) and I confirm that “Marshmallow Mountains” will soon be yours. The combination of purpose, passion and action can bring about peace of mind which leads to the progress and prosperity we wish and want.

The golden rules to achieve success in life are: Let us keep track of what we do; someone is sure to ask. We should never go to our boss with a problem without a solution. Remember that long hours don’t mean anything; results count, not effort. Write down ideas; they get lost, like good pens. We need to know when we do our best ― morning, night, under pressure, relaxed; schedule and prioritize our work accordingly. We should always remember to acknowledge someone else’s contribution which will repay us doubly.

Choose to do what we’ll remember 10 years from now. Never say, “It’s not my job.” We need to be honest in our career, our interests and ourselves. We need to understand the skills and abilities that set us apart and use them whenever an opportunity comes. We should always have an answer to the question, “what I would do if I lost my job tomorrow?” Optimism and hope are the message of greetings for the new year from an Indian friend.

The writer is a professor of economics and dean/faculty of social sciences, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India. He can be reached at mmgoel2001@yahoo.co.in.