A feeling called “Satisfaction”

If you were to rank the feelings in terms of their ambiguity, then ‘Satisfaction’ would probably be on the top of such a list. Have you ever ventured into an act of ‘satisfying’ someone. It is actually a routine task. A baby has to satisfy his audience by his or her charming acts and baby-chatter. A school going kid has to satisfy his or her parents with good marks and achievement. A teenage boy has to satisfy his girl friend and vice-versa.  A husband has to satisfy his wife and vice versa. A father has to satisfy his kids and the cycle continues.

All the acts of satisfying someone that you read in the previous paragraph were general in nature. These are the acts that most of us encounter in our life. But professional groups also have to indulge in the act of satisfying their clients as we are moving towards a client-oriented system. An engineer or architect has to satisfy by building a beautiful house. A canteen or mess manager has to satisfy the connoisseurs of food. A prime minister has to satisfy his nation on all fronts. A finance minister has to satisfy the citizens through his budget and so on.

Let us understand this process of satisfying someone. First of all, it is a process that requires at least two entities. Call them ‘satisfier’ and ‘satisfyee’. The foremost requirement is that the satisfier has to make a list of what satisfyee wants. This requires a power of insight because many a times, the satisfyee does not mention explicitly what he or she wants :). Making such a list may still not be impossible but practically meeting those satisfactions will still not be impossible. However, they may be impractical. Imagine if your girlfriend asks you to build a Taj Mahal :).

Imagine yourself as a finance minister and think of satisfying this nation of a billion odd population. It is a herculean task and critics have to understand that this act of satisfaction is a function of the resources available to you. The opposition parties should provide specific and objective reasons where the budget fails if there is to be a meaningful opposition. Opposition should not oppose for the sake of opposing. It should commend the ruling parties for their good work and rebuke them for their misdeeds. I hope, a day like that will come in Indian democracy. In fact, one such story that I have read is about Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, our former prime minister being lauded by the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha for his contribution towards Non Aligned Movement.

To conclude, it is a daunting task (to the extent of becoming impossible) to satisfy people. Our ancestors have already written universal adages. For example, you have various sayings that say how difficult it is to satisfy ‘Baraatis‘. Sometimes, it is also difficult to satisfy yourself in certain matters.