Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

There is a very beautiful quote by a Zen Master to his disciples: “Water is water, tree are trees and mountains are mountains.” It suggests, just see, ‘What’ is ‘What’. Following this, truly, you will getting the essence of life. It teaches you how to live in the present and live the life at its fullest. There is nothing in the past, nor in the future. Whatever is, is just right now, never ‘was’ & never ‘will be’. In our life, what we do is that, we look at the things how we want to see them, not how they are in actual exactly. We see ‘well’, ‘pond’, ‘river’, ‘sea’ but not the ‘Water’. On the same track, I would like to say, ‘Eggs are eggs & Chickens are chickens’.

Future is unpredictable though we take support of astrology. It is just the result of your ‘doings’ in the present. Shree Krishna in Bhagwadgeeta guides on the theory of Karma. Whatever the Karma you do, it will be fruited in the future. Here he utters, “Karmannevadhikarasate, Ma Faleshu Kadachana.” Means, you go on doing your Karmas, never expect for the fruits. (They will be accordingly to your Karmas.)

Now, for the time being, let us assume that you have an egg but you don’t know of which bird is that? You have done all that required to fetch it up. Now, you are thinking in the future, you will have chicken from it and also expect that, it should be a future hen, you will feed that chicken, care it likewise. Then you will have more eggs from it and then more chickens and then hen and then eggs. So, you will have a poultry farm – one, two & three and many more onwards and the business will grow with no stoppage. And for your surprise, one of a person from that field tells you that it’s not of hen and is of some another bird. Suddenly, you will get a shock for a moment and all your daydreaming will be lapsed not too late than within a second. Then, all your ‘poultry business’ marks some stupidity, isn’t it? So, be in present, do what you can. Do your Karmas & leave rest on the future. In either way, you might save a bird or even would have a chicken as ‘capital’ for your farm!

Every year, weather department ‘predicts’ the report on upcoming monsoon. It is clearly a ‘prediction’, but still many farmers considering it as guarantee, get loans from banks, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and all that in advance. As we know, he too, exact behavior of monsoon is not in our hand and it’s all about nature. So, doesn’t it make loss of all that purchase before time and so the loss of person and indirectly the economy of the nation? How long you progress in science & technology, we can’t cross the nature. The egg will take its own time to fetch up and to come chicken out of, of course, if it’s of hen.

We do have to think on it seriously & carefully. People or things are not predictable at all. There is a probability & so the accommodated risk of the reaction from the people or things. History teaches us a lot for future. We all know the reasons behind the India – China War, 1962. At that time, saying ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ and believing on it blindly, we had changed our political strategies towards China. Part of that strategic program was to remove the Indian Army from China border, reducing our defense production, etc. What we had the prolonged effect of this, we lost the war, major area of Arunachal Pradesh & Kashmir (Aksai Chin). It was like, someone told us that egg is fetched now and before chicken come out on its own, we cracked it.

Though an egg is of oval shape, every coin has two sides and so for this phrase too. Yet, we have seen all in its support. Now, where is it adjustable to count your chicken when you are pretty sure about egg is of hen? – A contradictory question. We have to think on this side also to get it meant fully before application. Otherwise, we will repeat the same thing – ‘counting chickens’. I mean, this point will fetch the egg to come out the chicken.

Here is the point of ‘Risk of Loss’. When a company is set up, at the startup phase, it has the ‘Risk of Doing Business’. Yes, it is done only after lot of study, market analysis, vendor assessment & customers predictions, still it is risk due to unpredictability at certain point of time. The risk is about customer demand, market flow, competition, company performance with potential incurring losses. The factors of ‘Push / Pull’ market system, discount by vendor, buffer stock to compete in the market also add to the potential risk. In this situation, whatever it is chicken or duck, you don’t have any option left to deal with. As you have invested in the egg, you have to accept the returns.

Knowing this side of coin, our government still plans for ‘poultry business’. It plans many schemes for its people those like ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’ in recent days, to name a few. The executions of these schemes is also unpredictable about their success due to dependence on its channels of implementation. Roughly, we will assume the probability of success of a certain scheme is 50%. Still it is essential to run. Because, though the scheme may fail, but its implementation might have been a life changing effect on the very few percentage of population as ‘recipients’. The failure would be just the numbers and figures on the level of expectations of government, but still it is a successful in its purpose for at least less effective in manner. The government being a very vast organization and purposefully formed for welfare of people, by the people, ready to ‘count chicken’ in advance whether it will be fetched up really to chicken or not later words.

A good chef knows how to make a dish delicious. And for that, he always took efforts on recipe, ingredients & procedure. Focusing on end dish & skipping these main factors, off course, won’t give you that quality business. And to reproduce the same taste or even better than that, he needs to deal with the ‘track’, not the ‘goal’. Rather than on ‘counting chickens’, the effort made on ‘fetching eggs’ only will enable a chef to serve a ‘tasty chicken’, isn’t it?

There is a nice quote in the Sanskrit, ‘Shighratam Ch Vinashitam’ means, if you hurry for the end result, you will get everything destroyed. As we know this from that story of a person having hen giving the golden egg. We know about the end of the story and the teaching from it as well. So, you have an egg and you can’t wait for chicken and you break it in hurry before fetching it up properly with due time, then for sure, you have to miss the ‘Chicken’ and have to satisfy on ‘Omelet’ only.

Therefore, the point to be remembered for the whole life: “Don’t count your chicken before they hatch.” A great person – Sirshree Tejguru Tejparkhiji – said somewhere about three W’s. Wait, Wonder & Watch. Applying this, you will truly have seen the wonders happening in your life. Practically, it is like before fetching, if you break the egg, you will have only liquid. Rather just, wait & watch, after full fetched, a living being – a chicken will itself crack the egg and come out – a real wonder of the nature!!

- miPratik

#miPratik #zen #chicken #egg