Prof A.K.Singhvi
Text of talk given to XIIth Standard students on their farewell function 22-02-07.
Dear Young Friends,
I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young people and I have a special feeling today. Friends, The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you and I do realize the fun of being young as I grow older. To an extent I envy you as you are born in the most exciting times. I wish I was thirty –forty years younger. Given the India poised scenario, ten years ago for those in school it was too early and ten years from now it will perhaps be too late. The ranges of career option that are open to you are increasing at an unprecedented rate. This opportunity also brings to you a tremendous responsibility, a challenge of succeeding. If you succeed, then India will succeed and if you mess it up, India will fail. So the onus is really on you. And it is on your shoulders. The logical question is what can one do and how. I have a few suggestions that may help you to shape the trajectories of your life, your destiny. I recently read an Article by Azim Premji and have taken some of the stories that he told.
The first thing is the choice of what you should do. How do you decide what is best for you. My simple suggestion is analyze your strengths and interests. Do what you can do the best and work in an area where the work becomes your hobby- i.e. where you can work on a 24X7 mode with out being tired. Your work should be an obsession/passion. Your work is like your soul and be one with it. You can not be a teacher or a doctor 8 hours a day. You have to be so 24 hours a day, if you want to succeed. I always tell my students that you have to have a romance with your work. Be one with your work. You should feel passionate, excited, enthused, motivated and possessive about it. If this happens, every thing else including success will follow. You will not need to worry about marks. They will follow.
This is not easy as all along our lives every one focuses on what is wrong with us. Your mother, your father, your teacher, your friends always will tell you what is wrong with you. They do not mean ill for you and their comments are only to make you better. But the fact remains; no body sees what is good with us. We also do not see this and we go by majority advice- "democracy in life!, wow!" We believe in what others say for us. That’s where we make mistakes. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a school. Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at it. Concentrate on swimming."
They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim? Thus lack of decision on the part of the young rabbit and yielding to peer pressures ruined a bright career. While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish about what - is good in us. That is because it is only our strengths that can give us the motivation to correct our weaknesses. See the examples of medical school. Every year several thousand take to medical school having scored 90%+ grades. But you will find that not even 5% of these are truly successful as medical practitioners. What happens to the rest? These were those, for whom medicine was not their hobby, not their passion, not their first love. Just as they got their marks and parents told them to go to medical school and they went and then started drifting. And these will continue to drift all their life.
An associated thing is do not give undue weightage to marks and money. They are only by products of a larger goal. Money is important. Marks are important. But let us not give them a larger than life status. It is more important for you to have fun with your work. Think of a drop of water. If it falls on the ocean, it merges and looses its identity. The same drop if it falls on a leaf, it shines like a pearl. Is noticed and is felt. Thus we need to find our leaf – our domain where, we excel, shine, radiate, dazzle, and make a difference. Once we can define these domains, every thing else will be simple. Good grades will follow. Also not all need be doctors or engineers or CAs. There are many and more creative avenues that will suit your temperament. Choose them and go for them. Remember, the world does not consist of only doctors, managers, IT professionals and CAs. If it did, will it not be a boring place. Every one in the world has a place, has a role to play and hence do not attempt to do, what, even the God had not ordained.
The next aspect is Ethics and Respect for all around you and your selves. My father always told me, if you respect your things, your things will respect you. What is Ethics? It is the guiding principle of social conduct that provides greatest happiness and benefit to all. What does it involve? Honesty and compassion. You need to inculcate healthy respect for elders, teachers, colleagues, environment, your colleagues in the office, to those live near you. The way we drive these days, shows how much of a respect we have for other persons right on the road. Recognize other person’s rights and needs, and give them as much of a weightage as you will give to your self. Give them as much of space, as much you need. Be FAIR. When you buy a rail ticket by wrong means, think of how you will feel if you missed a reservation due to some one else doing the same. Be compassionate in whatever you do. We did not respect our environment and look we are at a precipice. Our futures are not secured. Our children will struggle for water and clean air. Be sure, a decade from now we will have wars for water and clean air. Environmental strife will over take cultural strife. Did we think 20 years ago that for clean water we will have to pay a rupee for a glass?
When you rejoice an event, always think of the less privileged in the society, spare a thought for them. A country’s well being is defined by the well being of one and all. Just as you are not healthy if your toe nail is paining, your society is not healthy if even a single person is hungry, dejected and without hope.
Never laugh at any one. Life is strange and tomorrow it could be you. Be humble to one and all and be so from the bottom of your heart. You loose nothing but gain tremendous goodwill. A linked aspect is to spread happiness. If you can not do good to any one, do not ever do any thing bad to any one. It will come back to you one day. Life is a strange leveler and you will find that you will get back for whatever pains you have given to others. And this will happen, in this life itself. You will not have to wait long!
Respect your self. And this respect is earned. It can not be inherited and is not genetic. If you do not respect your self, no one else will. Take your self seriously. If you do not, no one will. Respect your time. Manage it. Remember, a lost time is never recovered and a person has no time to spare. Learn time management. Every day set your targets and then take time off to reflect on the day, how you managed it, did you achieve your goals? How you could have done it better? Learn to set higher goals and try to achieve them. Be your own competitor. If you make a diary and then analyze it daily you will realize that you are a different person in no time.
The most important thing in life is self esteem. Come what may, you should have the resolve to stand by your self and face all adversities. No one is totally happy or unhappy. It’s a mix always. Good time will be followed by bad times and so on. Never be too happy or too depressed. It’s all transitory. All you need is your guts and faith in yourself and the rest will pass by. No one scores a century every time. But one can try every time he goes out. We will fail but, if we know our trajectory, our road map then we will find the way. In failure, or periods of lows, do not seek short cuts. If you did, you will be a sure looser. Do not cut corners to achieve success. Success through the proper route is always more satisfying and enduring. There is the story of an eight year-old girl. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally, they took the child to a supermarket and brought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious. The difference was that she has cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards, through our own efforts. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have’ if we have struggled to earn it. So my dear friends learn to earn your accolades.
Be bold to accept your mistakes. We all make mistakes, but accepting them upfront will make things immensely easy. Honesty and truthfulness are age old dictums and have survived. If you stick to, it may be you will sleep well. Think about what you want to do. If you analyze any life, you will find that there are a few defining moments in ones life. You will have these and you will have to grab the opportunity that comes by. If you miss them you miss them for good. There is a story of a man who believed in God. Was convinced that due to his devotion, the god will help him, through all the times-good or bad. Once there was a flood and he was getting marooned. A boat came by to help but he said do not worry, the God will take care of me. Then after an hour the water rose and the boat came again to rescue. Again he said, do not worry, God will help. An hour later he drowned and died. When in the heaven, he asked God that despite all his faith and devotion, why did he not save him. The God said, “I sent the boat twice, but you did not come. You did not want to help your self so what could I do”. Remember, Chance favors the prepared mind and a prepared mind need constant preparation, and so be clear in what you want, be prepared for whatever you want, and look for opportunities that will come your way.
Then, look for good things in others. Savor them, learn from them. Never look for negatives. Life is too short to do that. Remember how Gandhi ji kept the needle and threw the papers that had bad words written on them. Keep that is good and leave others. Look for those good needles. Think of positives and you will gain much. Never be revengeful. Never be angry. Never find faults. It does not help except as it occupies unnecessary space in your memory and makes it slower. Often you will find you got angry for things that you will perhaps not remember a few days hence. Then why waste time. There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the Customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, “Thank you, Sir." One day, the vendor’s assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don't you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and replied, "He can't help being rude and I can’t help being polite. Why should I let his rude behavior dictate my politeness? NEVER LET ANY ONE DISCTATE YOUR ACTION. Let no one provoke you to act. You act because you want to act. You are your own master. You must be your own master.
The essence of success is hard work. Strive for excellence. Learn from others and always keep time for you to reflect on your day. Be your challenger. Set your self higher goals and innovate on how to get there. Never feel satisfied. The day you are satisfied, you cease to grow. Excellence should become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit and your only competition is with yourself. People should learn to associate your name with excellence. Remember, at times we drive 5-10kms to eat a Pan or a chat. Why? This is simply because he has excelled in the art of making a Pan. Find your PAN and excel in making it to a level that the world applauds it. That is a successful life.
Never relax. Life is tough and you need to keep trying to survive. There is the story from the book, Who Moved my Cheese. Two rats lived near a cheese cube. They liked the place and therefore built a house assuming that the supply of cheese would last for ever. It went on and the life was good. But one day a dirt truck came and took the cheese away. So used they were to having an easy cheese that they forgot the art of work and eventually suffered the worst. So keep looking for opportunities and survival strategies. If you are at, it you will get it. In Geology, we have the example of wind erosion, such that winds are able to cut rocks. It picks up grains of sand and makes them bounce on the rock and does it day after day, hour after hour. To me this teaches a valuable lesson in life. An persistent effort will never fail. It must give results and It will.
Never give up in the face of adversity. It comes to you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes a fine steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me. His eight-year old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don't you just give up? I don't think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.
At the end of the day, it is values, the attitude that define a person more than his altitude. If the youth of India has the right attitude, India will succeed. If not, it will be a doomed state. Please realize the important role that you have to play. Please take your self seriously and please do not compromise on values. Please dream, and dream big but do not sleep. If you read Wings of Fire by the President Kalam, you will see how they worked through the night after night, day after day to be able to do the tings they did. Did you see the film Guru or the life of Amitabh Bacchan or Shah Rukh Kahan, or Saif Ali Khan or A.R. Rahman? All of them work 20 hours a day at least. All of them take their work as a religion. There is no short cut to success. Did you see Guru? What is the message you got. The message to me was that conviction of purpose and hard work will take you any where you want to reach.
I wish that you achieve success in whatever way you define your life and what gives you the maximum happiness in life. Remember, those who win are those who believe they can. Also I will request to always think about,
· What would you be liked to be remembered for, when you depart the world?
· How will you justify your existence on this planet – for using its resources?
· Did you make a difference in the world? Were you different from less fortunate living beings who came and went without being noticed. Being humans, can we do better.
· Were you successful as a human being?
· Think, what is a successful life ?
Try to see your place in the larger context of the world. If you did that, your attitudes will change.
Life is a wonderful gift from God. USE IT, SAVOR IT, RELISH IT BUT PLEASE DONOT SQUANDER IT. Stand up and get going. Your time starts now! And there are miles to go before you sleep and there are promises (to yourself) to keep before you sleep. I urge you to make this country and this world a better living place –where the heads are held high and where every thing – people, environment and the ethics are respected. And, I pray that you SUCCEED thereby India succeeds.
Acknowledgements: My thoughts have been benefited from writings of many over a period of time. This lecture is therefore synthesis of my own world view and what many others have said and felt. My gratitude to all those, who have influenced me - one way or the other.
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