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Sadhu and Sisyphus The parable of Sadhu is not only a story that emphasizes the hard paths in life versus the easy paths or choices between what is good and what is evil. It is a story that teaches people of moral ethics. A story that shows organizations and individuals that everyone has to deal with the outcomes of the choices they choose. After reading the parable it became clear that the focus of the story is to show business students that good ethical morals are the key to being successful entrepreneurs, bankers, managers, investors or financial consultants.
Nonetheless, I was also careful not to assume that this was the only lesson that the author, Bowen McCoy wanted to teach his readers. For example, the reader is only told that the Sadhu had only a few clothes on and no shoes (McCoy 148). I know that a Sadhu is a person who has who has given up all his possessions in the world and he devotes himself to a spiritual life. However, for any other American readers who does not know this, might assume that this man is mentally challenged.In this real life story, it seems clear that everybody who came across the pilgrim contributed to reviving him.
The Japanese gave him food, Stephen and four Swiss men clothed the man and the narrator, McCoy checked his pulse and made him comfortable after noting he has hypothermia (149). However, here was no one who was completely responsible for the well-being of the pilgrim. As a business student, this story challenges me to ask myself where individual ethical responsibility ends and if organizations practice institutional responsibility.The myth of Sisyphus is another story that has a moral lesson; that all earthly passions have a price attached to them.
Sisyphus only got permission from Pluto to go back to earth because he wanted to chastise his wife who had thrown his body to a public square (Camus 154). However, after staying on earth for many years, he forgot that he was only there for one mission and not to stay. He did not want to go back to the underworld after enjoying the earthly pleasures. He scorned the gods and hated death. This angered the gods who punished him by condemning him to an eternity of rolling a rock on top of a mountain.
In reality no one can claim to come back from a death experience. The myth of Sisyphus is a lesson to the professionals in the corporate world, showing no one in the corporate world knows how their businesses will perform in future. The myth shows that the moral choices made by people can help those with the power to exercise their free will to overcome life’s challenges. For example, business persons perform many tasks successfully whether it is in their offices or during their workouts. Successful business administrators share brief triumph at one point in their lives.
Therefore, by exercising one’s will by positively reaffirming one’s actions and thoughts sets one on a path to becoming more successful.The two scenarios provided by the two stories show that things that seem to matter so much in life might after all not mean so much in our lives. In the story on Sadhu, everybody got worried because of other things, other than engaging in collaborative efforts to reach a common end goal. In Sisyphus’s myth, Sisyphus cared ceased to care about the god’s view of mortal deaths and lives (Camus 157).
In the two scenarios, there are different decisions made and they all have different outcomes.Works CitedCamus, Albert. The myth of Sisyphus. Westminster: Penguin books limited, 1955, 154-157.McCoy, Bowen. "The parable of the Sadhu." Harvard Business Review 1983, 147-150.
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