Sankalp, the absolute cost
Willpower is the biggest determiner in a person’s worklife; a motivated person will go to any
extent to make an impossible-seeming task possible, says RK Handu

The human journey started with the palaeolithic age and then came fire, wheel, machine and electricity. Later, the atomic age was followed by computation and automation. Now it may be metaphysical age and we may like to assess the absolute cost of goods produced.

Everything — from service to an idea — costs on this earth. For calculating the total relative cost we generally sum up the various elemental costs involved, such as cost of material, cost of infrastructure arising out of investment in land, space, machinery, equipment, technology and systems, labour cost, maintenance, energy, supervision, sales, advertisement and opportunity cost.

Finally all the above costs can be broadly divided into two categories:
(i) Cost of total human
effort involved, which is measurable in terms of time spent or percentage of average man’s life span spent in producing an item of service or a concept.
(ii) Cost of total material involved. This again depends upon availability of that material. It is observed that every material that we can think of must exist in this world, although it may not be readily accessible to all or even to one human being. Human effort is required to search or locate that material. If a material depletes above ground it, or its alternate, may be located in high mountains, in deep mines or under the ocean beds. A material depleted on our planet may be found on some other satellite or planet or star.

There are countless stars and since it is said that universe is still expanding we can easily contemplate that material cost in itself is zero and the only cost involved is human effort cost required in its exploration.

So we can finally conclude that the total cost depends only upon human effort required in conceiving a thought, an idea or a concept and then finally converting it into a physical form or tangible service.

To measure the human effort required in evolution of a thought, material, machine or service we may analyse the ingredients involved in human effort and their corresponding time duration required for doing a job. A person has always to do something and may not remain idle even in sleep, which means that a person can work round the clock, although it may be at physical, mental or subconscious level. So the unit of human effort shall be time, in terms of his percentage of life span, spent by a person in doing the job.

Time cost, again, for humans is not easy to find because a person may live for long and do nothing tangible or one may live short but do a lot; still some may live for long and do a lot. The type of work done by a human being has great effect on his/her longevity, calibre and stamina. A person working in a hazardous area may have a shorter life span and human effort cost increases, whereas a person working in congenial area lives longer, resulting in reduced human effort cost. Finally, we may say that human effort required in doing a job is measurable in terms of percentage of lifespan, which further depends upon his/her following qualities:

i Intelligence
ii Concentration/dedication towards work or job
iii Information or knowledge
iv Supernatural grace measurable in terms of probability of uncontrollable factors working in favour or against the person involved.

Physical strength and stamina is not considered because above intellectual factors can generate these directly by producing a sound physique or indirectly using a machine.

The intelligence, concentration, dedication or will to do a job are innate qualities of human spirit. These qualities are the measure of evolution of a human being. If an evolved person wills to do a job he often succeeds in doing that, howsoever difficult that job may be. Greatness of a leader is often measured by the value and difficulty level of the job. It seems the success level of great leaders is more just because their concentration/ dedication and will is great. The phenomena of this great will may be termed as the willpower or sankalpshakti of a person.

So finally it may be concluded that producing a will or sankalp is the absolute cost of doing a job. A person’s willpower is his measure of capacity to accomplish a job. Willpower fundamentally concerns self-discipline ie controlling oneself and one’s conduct. Self-discipline can also be defined as the ability to motivate oneself in spite of a negative emotional state.

This can also be illustrated by some simple examples, which most people must be familiar with: Sometimes, you wish to go for a walk, knowing how good it is for your health and how wonderful you feel afterwards, but you feel too lazy, and prefer to watch TV instead. You might be aware of the fact that you need to change your eating habits or stop smoking, but you don’t have the inner power and persistence to change these habits. Willpower is the ability to overcome laziness and procrastination. It is the ability to control or reject unnecessary or harmful impulses.

Mechanism of job accomplishment
The moment a person discovers a strong reason to do a job, a will to do that is made. Next, the person defines and specifies that in thought and if required, in word also. The job is organised and planned in a mental blueprint, involving arrangement of financial, technical, manpower, legal, communication resources as required and the quality and time required to do the job according to the calibre of the person and complexity of the job.

A highly-evolved person may choose his manpower and communicate with them on thought line instead of telephone or internet. His manpower also may not work for name, fame and money but only for some divine reason. The job is accomplished with perfection without many knowing who was behind it or its basic cause.

There is a misconception in the public mind regarding willpower. It is erroneously thought to be something strenuous and difficult, and that one has to exert and tense the body and mind when expressing it. On the contrary, all that is required is to develop abilities to perform certain actions, which you often avoid doing due to laziness, procrastination, weakness, shyness etc.

— RK Handu is Assistant Professor at Ambala College of Engineering and Applied Research, Ambala

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