Putting the Cart before the Horse

We are all familiar with the mind boggling question, ‘which came first, the Egg or the Chicken?’ But in life, things don’t have to be so complicated all the time. There are things where the choices are easy. What would you do if you see a woman on your right caught on fire while on your left you see another woman needing a hand to lift a pile of firewood on her head? Who would you help first? Of course the woman on fire. But priority setting based on the common sense of the order of things is not very prevalent. I saw a banner in Delhi which says, ‘Computer Course for Slum Dwellers’.  The government in order to generate employment opportunities for slum dwellers came up with the plan to teach them computers. It doesn’t occur to the government that the slum dwellers toil to put food on their plates daily, forget about reading and writing. Let me present here some sets of things and let’s think which should be first and which should follow.

Which one first?

1.       Putting up a ‘don’t dump rubbish here’ notice by the town municipal council OR provision of public dustbins?

2.       Observance of earth hour OR provision of regular power supply?

3.       Supply of sophisticated antibiotics/antiviral drugs for diarrhea OR provision of safe drinking water?

4.       Social networking in the internet OR visiting a friend?

5.       Building a career OR receiving an education?

6.       Celebrating the festival of festivals OR rationing of food grains to BPL families?

7.       Forming a union for social justice OR loving your wife?

The choice isn’t always one first and only it before we proceed to do the next. In the sets of options given above, we may have to do both at the same time. But isn’t it the case that we often put the cart before the horse though we know we need both the cart and the horse?