For the quest of peace and thirst
of happiness, I became a wanderer in the core of thoughts. While wondering
thoughts afloat me through the unanswered questions, I always sat back and
reflected, but in agony. The typical question that tickles me is the thought on
the normative visions of the universe. As more doctors crowds the hospitals, so
is the increasing number of patients and the number of vehicles increases
faster than the growth rate of the city whose corners are filled with people. While
we agree to the visions that we created long before, to conserve our pristine
environment, we are on the race to destroy it with empathy. The destruction of
our environment are beautifully plated with the gold of economic development,
neglecting many unlit homes in the far flung villages of the country. On the
race to gain from the so called white gold, we are heading towards a never
ending public debt. However, these are the few question on the screen with many
still being edited by the few.
Sit aside and think on how we are
progressing. Are we equalizing our victory to the number of recognitions we
received? Or is it the future consequences that we must secure for the
victorious position? I am neither an economist nor a politician yet the nuance
of such policies aggrieves me. The world is on the race to promote sustainable
development, and people are bellowing for equity and justice. Yet Bhutan
suffers the consequences of the booming factories in the neighboring countries.
While we are on the race to borrow huge amount of money for building hydropower
dams, do we realize the consequences of such acts? Am not against building
hydropower dams nor against economic development, but should we not carry what
our legs can support?
Another hypocrisy that we face
today is the definition of the happiness. People advocate and theorize that
material goods do not give happiness. We are deep into the lectures of
mindfulness being related to happiness. Some even call for cultural
preservation and true Bhutanese culture to gain happiness. This thought is
lingering in the minds of the all learned people, yet they are the ones to
accumulate material goods. Though we promote happiness at the international
level with pride in our culture and tradition, few Bhutanese board airplanes
from paro wearing our national dress. If not with the small size of our country
and economy, we would have lost some valuable cultures from our society. Only
then we will realize it like digging for bones and fossils for the long lost dinosaurs.
Another is on the policies and
progress we experience. We may call that we are developing at a very fast pace
but I think we are developing at an unmanageable rate. The things American took
few decades to study and establish are surging in Bhutan within few years but
without a proper management. To validate this, look at our telecommunication
facilities. Within few years of introduction of mobile connectivity, we started
connecting 3G without proper 2G base and added 4G with speed of snail. Then
people start complaining about the mobile connectivity without knowing that
service providers are trying to give them the lifestyle of an American not
realizing that we are developing with foreign aid.
The business ethics in Bhutan too
is thought provoking. Although it may be due to inheritance of the monopoly
businesses of the past, shopkeepers rarely cares about their customer, yet we
are into complaining about low business turnover due to increasing shops. The
business promotion strategies such as ATM and mobile banking services for the
banks are charged as service charges on their customer, only to minimize their
customer. Until other banking services install such facilities to promote
competition, they will make hay when the sun shines. We are too much into
copying the lifestyles from the outside world. Driving ethics from Indians (the
bad ones) and the dressing from the westerners, hairstyle from korea and
speaking from english, yet we couldn’t copy the business ethics from these
countries. We are like take if u want business and not customer oriented.
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