Life is full of ups and downs. The worst downfall comes when your belief in yourself and your dreams is shaken. We all have felt utterly worthless and downcast at some point in our lives. However, while the words used by us for describing such experiences are pretty similar, the intensity of emotional and psychological impact on the individual is what makes every such experience unique. Just as the value attached to various things, ideas, concepts and people differs from person to person, so does the impact of experiences. I am no exception to the rule and my life too has been full of the highest of highs and lowest of lows. In my life the lowest point came when because of an unfortunate mix of circumstances and wrong choices I could not make it to my dream medical college even after repeated attempts. Throughout my school life I had been an ace student and this was a terrible blow to my self confidence and belief in my abilities. I had been the kind of student who gets gloomy and depressed if he scores 93% instead of expected 96%. I was highly competitive and always worked hard. Throughout school, the word “career” more or less meant the field of medicine for me. I had never given any thought to any other career option. And there I was, with my dream seemingly shattered forever. The worst part was the feeling that some how all this could have been avoided. That somehow the dream had been well within my reach. However I had to take a decision and to move forward. And that was the hardest part. For I felt that if I could fail in something I so desperately wanted, how could I succeed in a field where I would be starting from stretch. This was one of the numerous ways my own negativity lied to me and deceived me into a cycle of despondency and self pity. But after a while, when the surging emotions had somewhat cooled down a bit, I calmly introspected and realized that it was simply cause and effect. What you are isn’t so crucial to what you achieve as what you do. Action is direct cause. And actions come from choices and choices are the drivers of the direction of our lives. Experiences and circumstances impact our lives through our responses. And I realized that we always have a choice to respond in a different manner. So what happened did not reflect on my abilities, only on my choices. Had I chosen to respond in a different way and acted accordingly, the outcome would have been different. The abilities were still there. Perhaps a bit less sharp because of disuse but there none the less. So I could still make my choices in a better way and build my life as I wanted to. And with that belief in my mind, I threw myself in preparing for management entrances and ended up landing at one of the ace B-Schools of the country, DMS, IIT-Delhi. My being able to gather myself up and accomplishing this after falling down that seemingly endless pit of self pity and negativity is something I consider my greatest achievement in life so far. The ability to keep taking hits and still moving forward is what makes everything possible. Once one masters that, everything else is within reach.
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