Tomato Chips and Potato Sauce

It was an exhausting day, we both stretched our limits. Finally we spotted one restaurant, ordered a good lunch and after feeding our stomachs me and my 20 years elder friend were satisfied. We had some casual talks, and suddenly I proposed one thought for discussion. I said, “This is my observation that most of the time, if you observe some of the big and famous names the fight they have put their entire life and became so famous and well known is really appreciable but if you look at their offspring then you see that they don’t have any fight in them to do something like their parents. This could be because no parent on this earth would want to suffer his child the same thing which he/she suffered in his/her childhood. So they try to give their children all the comfort in this world, because of this the children don’t get the value of that particular thing, they don’t really have to fight for that particular thing, for which their parents have fought as a child in their childhood. And this makes them incompetent. What do you think” he looked at me, gave a smile as usual and said, it is not so.

“What you are doing is, you are comparing Mr. Junior with Mr. Senior. If you see lot of things have changed since Mr. Senior’s child hood to Mr. Junior’s childhood today. Yesterday, Mr. Senior fought for lot of things, the basic needs perhaps, to survive, which was the need of the hour, but today the things have changed for Mr. Junior, the situation has changed. Today Mr. Junior don’t have to fight for his survival, because he knows for sure that he is going to get at least two times meal a day, and all his basic needs are going to get fulfilled,  so why he would waste his energy in that, today he needs to focus on other problems, and he need to fight accordingly, that doesn’t mean he is less competent than his parents.”

“But I have seen the live examples, the young ones are not that much successful or famous as compare to their genesis.”

“You cannot compare the Tomatoes with the potatoes though they are from same family. Each person has its own unique characteristics; you cannot expect Tomato chips or a Potato sauce. It will be irrational to expect this. What you can do is, you can compare tomato with tomato and potato with potato.”

“I lost you there with Tomato chips and Potato sauce. Feeling hungry again.” We both laughed and ordered some snacks because as the discussion was heating up, we need something to keep our mouth busy while the other person was talking. So we ordered some snacks, the French fries and the tomato sauce. “So where were we? The guy asked. “Comparing Tomato with Tomato!”

“Ya, you are right! We should compare Tomato against tomato. But the question is how? If you ask me, the good way is to compare yourself with today’s you and last year’s you. Is there any difference? have you made any progress? Have you learned anything new? Have you triumphed on any of your bigger problem? and if answer comes yes then that’s it, there is your fight which you were searching for. Which you feel it’s not there!

“Yes you are right, whatever you said right now could be right, and I’ll have to think on it, give me some time to digest it.”

Ok, you little wiseass, but till then, enjoy the French fries, and tomato sauce. Let’s digest these first. We both laughed, finished our little snack and we left, with a thought in mind of never to compare Tomato with Potato.