Questioner: Where do you draw the line between letting your children be happy and helping them achieve their full potential?
Sadhguru: Now you’re saying achieving your full potential is not happiness. How did this happen? See, tell me – what is the greatest pleasure in your life? Moments of accomplishment, success. Yes or no? Is it so or no? It could be in personal life, it could be in professional life, it could be in social life, but when you get to do something well, that is when you’re happy, isn’t it? It could be a small thing, it could be a big thing, it may be a great activity, or it may be you just hit the ball straight, you know the amount of joy – a lot of people are not coming home from the golf course, because they hit it straight one day.
In human life, the purpose of activity is success
So the question is not about this or that. In human life, the purpose of activity is success – any activity. If you perform some activity, you want to do it successfully, isn’t it? Don’t think your children don’t have it, they also have it. Only thing is because you are nagging them continuously, they want to do something just reverse. Because reverse, they understand as revolution. Don’t push them into that revolution. If they have to evolve, you have to show evolution. You have to exhibit evolution. Because your children don’t listen to the nonsense that you speak, they’re observing how you live.
Your child doesn’t need a boss, your child needs a friend
I want you, today, to put yourself through serious audit and make yourself tomorrow morning the way your children would love you. Your child doesn’t need a boss, your child needs a friend. Tell me when you were growing up, if you had some issues and problems within yourself, did you first go to your parents or to your friends? Friends. Unfortunate, isn’t it? Unqualified advice will happen among the friends. If you were their friend, real friend, not the boss that everybody is trying to be. If you are a genuine friend to your child, he or she would come to you first. That would be great, isn’t it? Please make that happen.
