English Literature – Articles ☆ All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go ☆ Shri Jagat Singh Bisht ☆

Shri Jagat Singh Bisht

(Master Teacher: Happiness & Well-Being, Laughter Yoga Master Trainer, Author, Blogger, Educator, and Speaker.)

Authored six books on happiness: Cultivating Happiness, Nirvana – The Highest Happiness, Meditate Like the Buddha, Mission Happiness, A Flourishing Life, and The Little Book of Happiness. He served in a bank for thirty-five years and has been propagating happiness and well-being among people for the past twenty years. He is on a mission – Mission Happiness!

🌌 All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go👔

When I look back at my life, I find four achievements standing in a neat little row, like well-behaved schoolboys waiting for inspection. First, I was selected as a National Science Talent Scholar — a title that sounded so grand that even my mirror began to treat me with a little extra respect. Second, I joined the State Bank of India as a Probationary Officer, which, in polite society, is considered a respectable way of announcing that one has arrived, even if one isn’t entirely sure where. Third, I qualified as a Behavioural Science Trainer, which meant I finally understood why people behave the way they do — including why they persist in behaving that way despite knowing better. And fourth, I was certified as a Laughter Yoga Master Trainer, which officially authorised me to laugh at life before life could laugh at me.

Any one of these achievements, taken seriously and pursued with monastic devotion, could have taken me much further than where I now find myself. But, like a man who owns four fine umbrellas and still manages to get drenched, I somehow mastered the art of not quite going all the way with any of them. It appears I subscribed, unconsciously and quite enthusiastically, to the philosophy that hard work defeats talent when talent doesn’t feel like working very hard.

There are days when I suspect that the poet John Tottenham had me in mind when he penned his little masterpiece on the tragedy of potential. The poem speaks of recognising the ideal, admiring it from a comfortable distance, and then sensibly deciding to admire one’s own imagined capabilities instead of the sweaty business of realising them. It is a poem about basking instead of striving, about settling for less while applauding oneself for knowing one could do more — a slow, dignified resignation to failure, cushioned by the velvet pillows of unrealised promise. If potential had a graveyard, my name would be engraved on a particularly well-maintained tombstone.

And yet, here I am — a curious hybrid of ambition and amusement, of insight and inertia. Through incessant efforts, reflective wanderings, and a career that zigzagged like a drunken butterfly, I feel I have acquired enough wisdom to contribute meaningfully to the happiness and well-being of mankind. I possess tools, techniques, perspectives, and even a certified licence to spread laughter. In short, I am all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Perhaps that is the final joke life has played on me — or perhaps the joke I have played on life. I stand on a modest heap of achievements, gazing wistfully at the mountains I might have climbed, consoling myself with the thought that at least I enjoyed the view along the way. If nothing else, I have learnt this: talent is a charming fellow, but without the company of hard work, he becomes an unreliable houseguest who eats all your snacks, praises your potential, and leaves before doing any real work.

So I smile, adjust my philosophical waistcoat, and carry on. After all, if I cannot yet save the world, I can at least make it chuckle — and perhaps, one day, prod it gently into thinking. And who knows? Even a man basking in the glory of potential may yet rise, dust himself off, and decide that it is time to stop rehearsing life and finally step onto the stage.🔸