“ The demon is always within. The goddess is always within. The battle too, is always within. And so is the triumph of one, over the other. Which one, over which one ? That choice is also, somehow always within. “

I may call it the “dilemma of life”. The above quote simplifies for us, the answers to all our doubts in life. Many a time ,when we are struggling to find out what is right and what wrong, we tend to look outside for the answers. But the truth is that ,the answer also lies within us. We sometimes choose the right one and at other times ,the wrong one. But, we may not always take the responsibility, for the consequences.

Let us take the first choice ,most of us make. It may be the academic path ,we choose to pursue. We have a world of information today ,in front of us. We have parents, teachers, friends and well wishers to guide us ,all the way. After considering all that, we make a choice. If it goes well, we are happy but it we fail, we are looking for whom to blame ,for the same.

Next, we choose a career path. After our academics, we are at liberty to choose what we want to do in life. We could pursue a corporate career or an enterprunial one. Either way, we have a lot of resources ,to guide us ,before we take the plunge. Let us assume, we take the plunge to pursue a corporate career and do not do well. We then try to blame someone, and say we were keen to pursue our own business.

Now that we are done with academics and our chosen career path, we are all set to choose our life partner. We have a choice to choose our partner ourselves or let others choose the partner for us. Either way we are not comfortable. When we finally choose, we may again take credit for a a decision ,someone else may have taken.

Life is full of choices. We have a plethora of information to make our choices. We may make some good decisions and at other times, we may falter. But the responsibility of the decision has to always lie with us, irrespective of the outcome of the decision.

Let me illustrate this ,with an example of a sport. When a captain and a coach take a decision on behalf of the team, they have a lot of experience and background information ,to take a decision to bat or field ,in a cricket match. Today ,data analytics ,enables objective decision making. However with all this information , they could go wrong. They could be right or wrong ,at the end of the match. Either way, they have to own up the decision.

Similarly in our life match, we are the captain and the coach – two in one. We too have a wealth of information today ,to make decisions in life. But irrespective of the outcome of our decision, we have to own up the same. We cannot blame the source of our information or others, who may have influenced our decision for the same, if it goes wrong.

To conclude, we may say that the good and the bad, is within us. What we choose ,is also within us. Once we choose, what we choose,to take responsibility for the consequences of that decision, is also within us only.

Let us take responsibility for all our decisions and actions from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

1st July 2025