What am I made of? What am I really made of? When push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road, when the chips are down, what lies at the very core of my character?
I learnt what I was really made of only when things went wrong and I was tumbled, end over end, by some adversity or setback that hit me like a truck coming out of an alley. Since my behaviour on the outside are the real indicators of who I was on the inside, only by observing how I behaved when things went wrong could I tell what I really had inside me.
I had always been a fairly well performing student, disciplined and kind of introverted. I always had my homework completed, only talked to my friends when they had doubts and only looked forward to playing catch with the Freshwrapp used to pack my lunch. School was a pretty monotonous time for me and I couldn’t wait for my college to get started. I aspired to have a great college life and dreamed of joining the best IITs. That’s how Kota became a part of my life.
Kota was a place for dreamers. Everyone wanted to get into the best colleges, but few wanted to work towards the same. Those two years didn’t transpired how I wanted them to be and failing in IITs hit me hard. While I felt parents would be my biggest adversaries after it, I’ve never felt closer to my parents than after my first big failure.
While it seemed like the biggest problem I had ever faced, soon it would turn out to be one of the few small problems I’ve faced in life. Let’s make one thing clear, life is a continuous succession of both small and large problems. They never end. No sooner do you get control of one situation when you are hit by another.
In college I worked hard to rebuild my lost confidence and getting the only paid summer internship that our college could offer was a moment of pride for me. I thrived in the organisation during my summer’s projects and bagged a PPO from the organisation. I realised confidence does wonders for you, so do what you can to hold onto it. I had grown into a much better communicator than I could’ve ever imagined. I thrived at collaborating and this came as a pleasant surprise for me.
I went on to work for the same organisation for over a year and then managed to get an admission in SIBM Pune to start my 2-year journey of MBA. Today, in my fourth week of MBA, writing this article in the library in a Van Heusen shirt, I am conscious of the muscle I’ll require to get through this rigorous MBA program. But I’ve decided to take one step at a time, face all my challenges head-on.
Currently, I have small problems with limited consequences, but soon when I enter the corporate world I’ll face large problems with enormous consequences. The way forward for me is to back off mentally, and become as objective as possible, because it helps me deal with the challenges, difficulties, and sometimes heartbreaking adversities every day, week and month of my life. Life is a process of “two steps forward and one step back.”