Why we sabotage our own goals?

Recently, my neighbors, who are two brothers met with an accident that cost them their lives. Was it due to their momentary carelessness? It was not entirely because they were unaware of safety precautions. Perhaps, during that instance, they were more interested in thrills and were not quite aware of the bike’s speed and control mechanisms. Many road accidents happen due to carelessness or overconfidence. These are factors we must address. Our goals are to live happily and safely. Lack of knowledge, overconfidence is minute factors that can impact our life tremendously. 

The main objectives of the National safety day consist of emphasizing safety ethics to the employees to achieve mindfulness in their workplace and to establish the importance of critical thinking in other domains. The ministry of labor, the government of India launched the National Safety Council (NSC) in the ear thach year, on March 4, the National Safety Day is based on an important theme. For the year 2021, it is based on ‘Sadak suraksha’ that translates to road safety. 

What leads us to sabotage our own goals? To begin with, there is a lack of awareness of what this day signifies, and what should be done. It is not part of our education system. Be it in schools or colleges across India, we are not taught or are hardly given a drill to prepare us on what to do during the occurrence of a natural disaster, or any hazard.  It has to become part of the curriculum and everyone right from their childhood needs to know how to protect themselves. We are also not taught to defend people who may offend or attack us. There is a lack of knowledge related to life skills and safety whereas it is very essential to be aware of all this to lead a good, healthy and safe life. 

We are not thoroughly prepared to face any such situations. Yes, we have the National Disaster Relief team, the armed forces, or the police who come to our rescue when there is a disaster. In case of physical assault is when the police or the courts intervene. The point remains that this is all after the incident occurs. We need to focus on how to take care of ourselves and train ourselves to have the presence of mind for our safety. The measures being taken, and the slow changes are quite minimal and insignificant to what is required. Quite often, due to psychological reactance, there is a negative reaction in being told what to do. This could make it difficult to observe and implement awareness among employees and this very lack of knowledge leaves us helpless in adverse situations. For example, in apartments, we have fire safety equipment set up on every floor but there has never been a drill wherein the residents are taught how to use it. We are thus, just waiting for a disaster to occur. Perhaps the general notion of ‘we shall deal with it when it happens, does not push us to make our safety a priority. 

When Ambedkar spoke about constitutional rights he said, “when people do not know how to earn for their livelihood, constitutional rights are not a priority. The priority shifts to earning their daily bread.”  Perhaps, similarly, safety measures are given minimum priority because it isn’t something we face every day. These may be the factors as to why we are not reaching our goals. Therefore, we as the youth of the nation must take it upon ourselves to ensure that starting immediately, we make it a priority to learn how to keep ourselves safe and also educate those around us to grow as a nation.