Few months back, I was looking at the contributions of great entrepreneurs and political players, and I came across one of the most amazing persons of our generation, Elon musk.
I got curious so I googled him and came across his biography. After reading the book, two things happened to me. Firstly, I was astonished at his creative thinking, innovative mind and strict adherence to discipline. Secondly, after reading his First principle of thinking, I took the task to invent a principle of myself.
Initially, it seemed an easy task. But many weeks passed and i came up with nothing. My thrill to innovate something ( though theoretical ) slowly started to fade. I burned midnight oil for some days, but to no avail. I was still empty-handed and annoyed.
One day, as usual I was sitting in my balcony and studying. Then I saw some kids running after a ball in the park. I saw them, smiled and told myself ” Something never changes. Today they are running after the ball and tomorrow when they will grow up, they’ll be after money“.
Then suddenly, I rattled out of my philosophical wishful thinking to a question ” Why do we or anyone run after money?“. Neither it is a precious treasure nor it is a set of magical beans. It is just a paper with legal sanction on it. Then why so much fuzz about it. After some time, I realised that it’s not money after which people run, rather it’s the facilities and services which money can buy. So the question arises, if money is not an end itself, so why the need to hoard it?
That’s when I began noting the things and I came up with my very own Root principle. The principle is similar to the first principle of Elon musk. Though both tell us to go to the fundamental units of complex process, but there is one difference among them. First principle deals about “What” of the problem, whereas Root principle deals with the “Why” of the problem.
The Root principle focuses on eliminating the intermediate steps to your final goal by focusing on “Why” of the steps. And with the elimination of distractions, it tries to bring out your most basic want. Now with the clear purpose in sight, one can also go to look for alternatives. For example-
You need money to buy a new phone despite you have a working cell,
Because your new phone will give you happiness.
So, You need to question four things.
1.Why is there the need of additional phone if you got one? Your old phone already serves all purposes, for what phones were made for.
2. Why not reaching for happiness directly than through money?
3. Have you defined happiness for yourself, according to your needs or you are just playing dumb like others?
3.Are there any other ways to be happy than just buying up new stuff?
The questions raises the important arguments about the way of approaching the goal. Like if your goal is happiness, why are you distracted by in-between steps. Just understand what happiness means for you and channelize your energy in that direction only. It will also save your valuable resources and make your existing resources more appreciable, just like that old phone of yours.
So the principle surely clears the path from distractions, make our life easier, helps us in realising the real purpose of things and help us find out the core wants of our personality. I know it’s nothing different but being stated, if the rule is applied on all aspects of life, life would be so much simpler. In a long run, it can also said to be promoting the culture of Hedonism.
Now, I don’t know that i innovated something new or not, but it really seems that this concept is still far away from majority of our young population. Even Aristotelian thoughts seem to agree with this principle as he said,
Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.