The Pakistani Dream
The Pakistani Dream: Thoughts after attending a motivational lecture
by Asad Umar
Asad Umar came to the National
University of Sciences and Technology yesterday and gave a motivational speech
to a congregation of 250+ students from various departments within NUST H-12.
For all those who do not know who Asad Umar is, first of all, “Hawww :O” :P.
Secondly, fine I will give you a very short introduction(:P): He was the former
CEO of Engro Corporation and the man who made Engro what it is today,
pioneering ventures like Engro Foods and the World’s Largest Single Train Urea
Complex at Daharki run by Engro Fertilisers! He resigned from his position as
CEO in 2012, and is currently serving as the Senior Vice President of PTI,
continually moving his vision of positively impacting the economy of Pakistan
ahead.
Engro Food Products
Engro Fertilizer
Now that you know who he is, let’s
come back to his motivational speech. During the talk, his emphasis remained on
instilling in his audience the true meaning of success and the concept of the
correct pathway towards it. He maintained that if a person wanted to be truly
successful in their life and career they would have to do two things:
1.
Have a vision and a goal set in
life.
2.
Have the determination to
achieve what is required to grasp that goal.
1.
It should take the person
beyond his or her personal capacity at the moment of the creation of the vision
or goal.
2.
The vision itself should be
vague enough to ensure satisfaction at the end of the person’s life that they
were able to achieve what they wanted to from life.
All this talk of developing
visions in, at least the upcoming generation of educated Pakistanis, got me
wondering…
With all due respect to Mr. Asad
Umar, who really did inspire his listeners today, I do not completely agree
with his allusion that Pakistanis’ lack vision and that their problem is the projection
of their failure to achieve onto the society and country as a whole. To tell
you the truth, Pakistanis’ do have a vision, but it is a distorted, misplaced
and quixotic vision. The idealistic Pakistani dream is not really a Pakistani
dream at all, but a foreign inspired American dream. Do not get me wrong, I am
not arguing for or against westernization etc here. I am just stating what I,
personally, have observed in our educated class.
The Pakistani dream is not
inspired by our local art, culture, literature, religion or even society. It is
inspired by American art, culture, literature, electronic media, fashion, law,
business, social norms (Yes EVEN social norms: I am shocked at admitting this
myself) etc. You name anything American and you will find someone in the educated
class of the Pakistani society agreeing that it inspires them. Although, our
dream is essentially to be like an American in every possible way, yet we will
never concede to this. To be very honest, we would deride anyone who would even
suggest such a thing and begin to quote various ways in which our society is
sooooo much better than the western society.
However, one has to face the facts
here. We say that our society is better because of our social values. For
example, we argue that the Pakistani society has a more stable family life,
where parents are taken care of at home by their children and not thrown away
in Old People Homes and the sanctity of marriage is kept alive, considering a
comparison of divorce rates with the west. But recently, Old People Homes have
sprouted rapidly in the Pakistani society and the divorce rates keep on
escalating. So where does that bring us? I am not suggesting that we are moving
along the same path that the western society took, but we do seem to be heading
towards a similar destination.
No matter how much we might spout
hatred towards the American policies and their impact on our country, whenever
we get a chance to get education, job etc in America, we jump to grasp it! This
sanctimonious behaviour is the root of most of the confusion brewing up in our
nation. We do not know what to accept and what to reject and we keep on
oscillating to and fro. Such a flaky dream can only result in a confused and
distorted vision. “To be or not to be Americanized?” That is the question. And
the answer is simple: We all stand conflicted.
Our nation might have overwhelming
amounts of talent, great minds and a huge number of ideas, but we lack the will
to accept who we are and what we want. Until we figure that out, there is no
point in blaming the government or a bunch of politicians for all our problems.
The problem lies within us, because a confused nation will only ever generate
an incompetent leadership.
Asad Umar’s experience says it
all. He admitted to rejecting a profitable job in Exxon, Canada, and an offer
of a job in Singapore that would have paid him a million dollars just as a
signing bonus, because it clashed with his vision, with what he wanted to do
with his life. His vision required for him to stay put in Pakistan, to stay put
in Engro at the time.
As a nation, we need to stop
complaining about how Pakistan can never progress and we can never progress in
Pakistan, and start realising our calling in life. The trick is to be honest
with yourself, even if your dream ends up being an American dream, it is still
yours, for until you don’t realise your dream, your life is going to run along
the path of a lost man’s nightmare, winding its path eventually towards
failure…
