The Path to Success - The Double OCD syndrome

Dedicated to my daughter Aabha, my nephew Yash and all my little friends and upcoming Physios who are the future of this great country.

“You are what you choose to be”, said Hogarth Hughes to the Iron Giant with a heart (From the movie Iron Giant). But is it really that simple. We always say how much life has been unfair to us all, how we so rightly deserved something but never got that reward. But is life so unfair to us at all? And if it is, what did we do to deserve something so bad???

Well, the problem is that we have been trained to crib about everything in life. We have seen our parents, families, friends, and neighbours, practically everyone around crib so much that we start believing in an unjust, unfair, miserable life. We believe that there are only selective people who have got the luck to be successful and we are the unsuccessful lot. Well, the truth is that success is not a physical domain. It is a state of the mind. Success is based on how well we can understand the Double OCD syndrome.

Most of us understand OCD syndrome as the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Syndrome, which is a behavioural challenge of doing something repeatedly. It is generally taken in a negative term.

The Double OCD syndrome we are talking about is the Opportunity, Challenges, Determination, Option, Choice and Decision syndrome. This is not any medical condition. It is just how we look at life in its vivid ways.

We all feel that life never give us an opportunity. Well, the fact is that we are given abundance of opportunities, just that we did not realise them. I remember the story of a devotee trapped in floods who was waiting for God to rescue him. He refused to take help from a passing car who offered to help him. As the waters rose, a rescue boat came. He refused their help saying that God will save him. When the waters rose to drown him, a rescue helicopter came to take him. He refused saying God will save him and alas, he drowned. In heaven, he asked God why such an injustice was done on such a faithful devotee. God replied, child I had given you the opportunities by sending the car, the boat and the helicopter. I was fair and just to you. So is life really so complicated? We don’t fail because we don’t get the opportunities, we fail because we do not realise them. Successful people look at opportunities in every aspect. They look at every challenge as a means to perceive things in a new way. They are successful only because they look at everything with a different perspective. Thus success in always a state of mind which helps us realise the best solutions in the worst case scenario.

Challenges are a part of life. In fact, challenge is a stimulus for growth, a stimulus for inventions and innovations. But many of us are too safe in our cosy zone and thus we resist change. When I read the book ‘Who moved my cheese’ by Spencer Johnson, there was a beautiful realisation of the need to understand this change. Heraclitus had rightly said, “Change is the only constant of life”. Even a stream has to flow, gushing through rocks and pebbles to boulders to become a mighty river. A stagnant pond is also of no use for sustaining life within itself. Challenges help us understand the force, direction and magnitude of this change. Thus, by simple law of physics, challenge is a vector quantity and thus can always be used for gaining mechanical advantage, provided we can determine the direction to success.

There are many challenges that we encounter in life. Everybody’s childhood may be filled with challenges, from learning to earning. But understanding the way in which we can use these challenges helps us understand the way to achievement. My mother’s accident in my 11^th standard introduced me not just to become self sufficient and self determined, but it also introduced me to the profession of Physiotherapy, which invariably became my stepping stone to success.

Once we have learned to change our perspective to the opportunities and give direction to the challenges, what we need is the determination to do it. Salman’s famous dialogue is the best example, ‘Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di toh mei apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta’ (Once I am committed to something, I don’t even listen to my own self). Determination is the key element to success cause if you are not determined; you may get short term benefits, but will lose on the long term gains. We had seen a wonderful video on 'The Compound Effect' by Darren Hardy. Whatever changes are to be brought about can never be seen unless you are determined with it. It can be as simple as losing your weight. If you workout for a month or two, there may be short term benefits. But to achieve those six packs, there’s always a compound effect of determination to do it, no matter what! There is no short cut to success and only the determined walk through the path to achieve their goals.

Life gives us options in every simple opportunity presented to us. In the earlier case, God had given many opportunities to the devotee. What he lacked was not just the understanding of the opportunities, but the lack of understanding the options and making a choice. We all understand the power of options in many physical dimensions of life, options while shopping, voting, attempting exams etc. But it is much difficult to understand the options in the factors of life. Although we interchange the words options and choice, choice is the action which we take on the situations called as options. We choose to act morally or immorally on the option of the moral decision, to react rationally or irrationally in a confounding situation. The choice that we make on the options of our life is called as our judgement. It is easy to pocket a wallet full of money that you find on the road. But to return it to its owner is a choice based on the options that you had. It is easy to be unfaithful to a person, but to love, cherish and care for that person forever is a choice that you take on the options that you have. This pair of options and choice is what makes us a human.

And finally, the judgemental call that you take is your decision. It is a virtue to act on a strong foundation and firm belief that should imminently lead to good, moral and noble character. Thus success is not only a mental factor, it is a spiritual factor as well. There may be someone who looks at robbery or murder as an opportunity to be successful, does an excellent planning to overcome the challenges and is determined to commit the crime. Only a noble character will realise the options to commit or not to commit the crime, to be an accomplice or not and will take a rational choice and a judgemental decision to act in good faith. Options, choice and decisions help us understand the consequences of the opportunities, challenges and determinations. They are the situations that make a twin brother a police officer and the other a criminal. What one saw as an opportunity to learn, a challenge to progress and determination to succeed with an option to choose the correct decision was perceived by the other as an opportunity to commit crime to overcome the challenge of poverty and the determination to become a master criminal with an option to choose the wrong decision. A person became a drunkard because his father was a drunkard. Another chooses to start an alcohol de-addiction centre because his father was a drunkard. Thus, it is a judgement in the same situation which makes us good or bad, loved or hated.

The path to success may seem difficult to us all. But preparing the mind to be willingly successful and the heart to be morally successful  is extremely important. Success can only be achieved when we understand the Double OCD syndrome and not only morale our thoughts, but also make our thoughts moral.

Dr. Apurv Shimpi