Two levels of Impact

Everything you think or do has two levels of impact: a short term and a long term.

The short term is the only level of impact most animals and many people visualise and go after. For example many students instead of poring over their books would prefer to be with their ipods most of the time and would take up their books only when exams are starting next day ie when the consequences have come within the purview of the short term. As long as the exams are perceived to be in the long term, they are ignored as if they don’t exist. Similarly a smoker lights up because he feels good in the short term though may die of it in 40 years. But as long as the cancer like the exams seems to be in the ‘long term’, it is ignored.

It is helpful to understand though that long term consequences are ignored only by the ignorant. All our important goals are achieved only when we become conscious of them over a sustained period. We don’t make a life by licking ice creams when we feel like it: we make a life by working in sustained ways at a goal worth achieving. We are always a consequence of our long term decisions and actions. Indeed we have to be because the short term lasts by definition, only for a short term. But we have a life that spans several decades: it should not be reduced to a no of years of superficial pleasure followed by a no of years of profound pain.

Every action has a short term consequence. Every action also leaves a long term residue: these residues are the building material for your character and your destiny. Everything you do gets you something in the short term; it also leads you to become something in the long term. So when you are doing, also spare a thought for what you are becoming.