Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02, Text 41
One of our innermost drives is the drive to show the world that we are someone significant. This drive impels us to win medals, which we hope will serve as visible evidences of our glory. Medals are most popular in sports. But they also have their avatars in other fields as trophies, certificates, awards, badges, dress-stripes. Such medals often generate intense emotions, which are self-evident insporting arenasas laughs and cries, roars and grunts, cheers and jeers.
Far less evident than the intensity of these emotions is their mortality. The emotional value of a medal peaks if and when we finally attain it — and people actually pause to admire and appreciate us. But soon after that peak,the medal-value starts slipping down a steady south-bound curve as the world moves on, and our life returns to its dreary and draining routine. No doubt,there are occasional spikes when others see the medal and praise us, or when we see it and relive sweet memories. Nonetheless, these spikes can’t arrest the overall pattern of irreversible devaluation.
