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Which Is A Better Job For A Spiritual Lifestyle?


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Trucking is good but for certain time. Get in and get out. Sikhi is suitable for all fields of work. It is up-to human how to balance your life.

You can't stay young forever and it is not physically possible to concentrate on road for thousands of miles for people hitting 40's.

Money can be earned in many ways but it is YOU who will decide what is important in your life and how to prioritize it.

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The importance placed on worldly pursuit by the punjabi community is almost fanatical. Some families don't even let sikhi into their house in fear of their children not being motivated to excel in a profession. Some water sikhi down intentionally to keep their kids on the tack of being professionals.

Doctors are needed and so are truck drivers. Everything is connected and depends on each other. It's the fanatical obsession with status and money these punjabis can't get over. Dad and moms look down upon other parents who's son or daughter could not accomplish a higher profession than their own diamond of a son. True story, a punjabi doctor marries a punjabi girl from india who is also a doctor. She comes overseas for him but he has not let go of his bad habit of being a womanizer. She finds out and leaves him and goes back to india. He ruined the girls life and which dad, brother, husband would let such a doctor near any of the women in their house?

In no way is a doctor reaping more by helping others. It takes other professions to make the doctors job possible. Sikhs are to show others the path to Vaheguru. We need to excel in being Sikhs. This is the only valuable item we have to over the rest of the world. People from other faiths can be lawyers doctors engineers etc. Yet only a learned Sikh can teach them Sikhi. Sikhs are unique because of this one ability we have in us.

I can't agree with this more. This is the most true thing that has been told. Excel in being a sikh first.
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I don't wish to generalise at all, but from what I've observed about our people over the years, Punjabis value a person's worth mostly on what profession somebody works in and the resulting status that profession affords them. I wish I could say this attitude has shifted with the rise of the newer generations, but if anything, it's only become worse.

Rarely are our people content with what we have, however little it may be. There's always the mad scramble to climb higher and obtain more. But I guess you could say the same for most groups of people, but I'm merely discussing this issue in the Sikh or Punjabi context.

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If the system and its apparatus is corrupt, you will either have to bend to its will or you'll be spat out. Look at politics. How many times have we seen idealistic youngsters declare, "When I become a politician I'm going to shake things up!" Yet, 10 or 15 years later they've become part of that very system they swore they'd never allow to defeat them.

I never said reaching the top is bad at all. I said those who strive to get to a certain level, more often than not, neglect those noble intentions they may have harboured when they first started out. It's human nature. I'll say it again: when one enters the daily grind of the "machine" even the most stringent potential reformer realises how rotten things have become.

But it is possible to buck these trends, and I believe being a Sikh (in the truest sense of the term, not only through words) equips one with the necessary tools to combat and confront. It'll be incredibly lonely up there if you're the kind of person who seeks affirmation and support from others to make it through the day (others who, BTW, will be so hugely invested in that corrupt system that any threat to it will jeapordise their very existence), but if the will and belief is iron-clad, then there is a chance to make a huge difference.

Please next time try to read what I said, or even attempt to read between the lines, and try not to attribute things I've not even alluded to in your haste to make your various arguments.

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Please next time try to read what I said, or even attempt to read between the lines, and try not to attribute things I've not even alluded to in your haste to make your various arguments.

I did read everything you wrote on this topic and in various other topics too. My various points were not haste - they were thoughtful and the examples deliberate. I quoted you in the entirety. I do think you had flawed logic when you wrote your original point and I will not be retracting or apologising to you. You did attribute that you were anti-reaching the top. Here are your exact words.

Rarely are our people content with what we have, however little it may be. There's always the mad scramble to climb higher and obtain more. But I guess you could say the same for most groups of people, but I'm merely discussing this issue in the Sikh or Punjabi context.

In my opinion Sikhs do need to reach the top and I will be a strong advocater for that even if it offends you in the process. We need more Amritdhari Sikhs to work hard, study, get educated and be leaders in their different fields so that they can influence society for the better.

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I did read everything you wrote on this topic and in various other topics too. My various points were not haste - they were thoughtful and the examples deliberate. I quoted you in the entirety. I do think you had flawed logic when you wrote your original point and I will not be retracting or apologising to you. You did attribute that you were anti-reaching the top. Here are your exact words.

Rarely are our people content with what we have, however little it may be. There's always the mad scramble to climb higher and obtain more. But I guess you could say the same for most groups of people, but I'm merely discussing this issue in the Sikh or Punjabi context.

In my opinion Sikhs do need to reach the top and I will be a strong advocater for that even if it offends you in the process. We need more Amritdhari Sikhs to work hard, study, get educated and be leaders in their different fields so that they can influence society for the better.

If I have to write an essay that covers every single outcome and permutation in order to make a point, then I just haven't got the time for that. I attribute anyone who reads or replies to me to have enough about them to understand the gist of what I'm saying. Obviously, I assume too much in some instances.

My reply to another forummer that you've quoted above was within the spirit of the conversation being conducted at that time, whereby the conversation was about individuals or a smaller subsection of Punjabi society, as opposed to a more general view on the merits of education and how spirituality is often relegated to an afterthought or not at all in most situations..

If you had read my previous posts you'd also have read the following:

I'm not knocking education though, but rarely do we learn anything for the love of discovery and self-improvement; it's almost always a means to an end. I'd be mad to say we don't need doctors or technically minded people in those professions, but as you said, the pursuit of those jobs are mostly for increasing wealth and status, particularly amongst our people for whom wealth and status are considered to be the holiest of holies.

And:

One thing I would say is be careful, because I completely understand your point of view, but a lazy kid could be reading and thinking, "Great! I don't have to work hard anymore!" Lol, you know some people just don't want to put the effort in, and they'll use God as a shield to deflect any criticism or justify their own lack of motivation. You aren't doing that from what I can deduce, but a cynical individual might be getting ideas to chill out whilst pretending to be a Baba or something.

Also, I believe if one has been blessed with an aptitude for education or the like, the fruits of those labours should be channelled not for filling one's pockets and social climbing, but for the good of your fellow man. All too often we humans cannot see beyond our own lives or the lives of our loved ones. Rarely, if ever, does our empathy extend to those who aren't related to us or those we don't personally know. It is a cruel world with occasionally dangerous people that should be avoided for various reasons, but most people are just like us; trying to make sense of it all and just wanting to see some kindness and understanding.

How anyone can infer I'm anti-education and anti-progress from what I've said above is frankly baffling.

Plus I'd appreciate it you dialled down the hostility a few notches. I'm no Pavlovian test subject, y'know :)

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