Persistence

The lapse

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

There was an orangish hue in the sky that evening. The sun was setting and a gentle breeze had had a good effect on the man, standing at the balcony in his high rise apartment in the heart of the city.

He had been a very successful entrepreneur. His startup had been a recognised and celebrated one, with successful operations across the country.

And yet, he felt that he hadn’t done enough. He was contemplating that day what he could do to change things. And as he stared at the setting sun and faced the gentle breeze, his mind drifted back into his past.

He remembered the days spent in his college, when he made great friends and amazing mistakes. And within all that mayhem, managed to do well in studies to secure a high paying corporate job.

It was only his self-insistence to do something different that had led him to move out of that job after a couple of years and roam around the country to absorb things.

As he recalled more, he remembered how while travelling the remotest parts of the country, he had hit upon his business idea. And how he had worked at perfecting the concept, not worrying about the time lost or what others would think.

After a few months of deliberations, he had then launched the startup and hit a home goal from the beginning. There were a fair share of hits and misses but the idea had merit and his startup constantly inched forward, to prove itself to its customers in the remotest towns and villages.

He had then expanded his horizons to provide multiple ancillary services. Again on the back of his insights that he continued to gather through his inland tours every few months.

Ten years had passed since the last time he had travelled inland. Increasing pressure on him and the demands on his time made him stop those. And slowly, with the influx of more senior managers, he had taken a back seat to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

It was only this late in life he was realising that it had not been enough. He had yearned to do more but somehow had ended up short.

Not for the want of desire. But for the lack of consistency to continue on the path he had set for himself.

He stepped back a bit, absorbed the evening, and breathed heavily. It was time to reset himself on the path. To walk again toward the destination he had set for himself.

For what he aspired for was still some distance away. In spite of the lapse, there was still time. He could yet walk on his path and reach his goal…

Enormity of our Effort!

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

These last few weeks, I have learnt so much working with my dad, to help him give shape to a long held dream of his – publishing a book that my grandfather wrote!

I was born three years after my grandfather passed away. So I have only heard about him from my grandmother, parents, uncles, and aunts. Some of them say I resemble him and that’s one of the reasons that I have been slightly intrigued by who he was, what he did, etc.

Over so many years, I have heard interesting anecdotes multiple times, tried to peep into his personality based on old reminiscing by different elders, and hoped to emulate him in terms of what he achieved in life. Yet, I never quite grasped the enormity of what he did around his literary aspirations.

He was a writer and a poet and quite well known in the central Indian region in his days, with regular articles published in various magazines. He was also very well known locally around my home town and hence I have heard bits and pieces of the kind of work he did in those heydays.

However, what turned out to be the most astonishing fact to me, which I discovered recently, was that he worked for over 14 years to give shape to his magnum opus. Something that he started working on when he had just crossed 40 years of age, and was almost due to complete before his untimely demise. And it wasn’t that he took time off or kept going in loops on some parts of the book.

I was in awe when I understood the enormity of this effort. For someone to dedicate 14 years of one’s life to a single pursuit is not a common occurrence. It takes a huge amount of patience and just continuous persistence to be able to do something like this. And then to not be able to publish it must have pinched him a lot in those last days.

He certainly isn’t the only one in this category. There are so many other examples of people continuing to pursue a single minded goal for years altogether, undeterred by difficulties in their path. Sometimes they don’t achieve what they had set out for but enrich themselves so much in the process. Most of them are champions in the literal sense!

As I thought more about this and how we live our lives, I couldn’t even think of comparing it with how we view a lot of things these days. How for a lot of us, it is about instant gratification and the need for external validation for everything we do. How we want to win everything even before we have understood the real meaning of winning. And how if we don’t get something, we move to the next best thing, forgetting about our original pursuit.

We don’t give enough due to those who continue to persevere and keep going at something specific. We view them as incapable or a failure, when they could very well be on the verge of success. What we miss out is, while they may take time to get to their destination, that duration of effort does not take away anything from their success. For they are the ones moving the needle on difficult things, or things which they probably weren’t good enough at, or just needed that time to find their rhythm and achieve success.

Perhaps we will do well to keep this in mind as we get on to that next project, that next job, that next relationship, or just that next personal goal. The enormity of our effort is not determined by the outcome that it garnered but by the enrichment that it leads us to and the fun had while at it…

PS: Salute to my father and uncles for taking it upon themselves to get this unfinished work published now!

Persistent Resilience

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes, what happens in a matter of days or even hours, scars one for life. And while time heals and life adapts, some scars remain and are problematic to get rid of.

I have had some share of disappointments in life but one such situation has been quite problematic to dissipate from the annals of my mind. It was about what happened with my business venture and why I couldn’t succeed in it, in spite of putting in my best foot forward.

As I winded up my business in 2014, over that painstaking first half of the year, I often spent my days debating in the head what went wrong. I got into a shell and became reluctant to share my disappointment with others. And while life continued and physically and mentally I moved on after a few months, that scar remained.

It would later manifest and trouble me in unthinkable ways – reminding me of my failure and making me skeptical of my abilities, taking me down the what-if analysis road where the possibilities I had seen but not achieved stared at me and making me feel worse, making me question if I was indeed on the right path, and so on. And the more it dwelled in my mind, the stronger the devil became.

I tried to overpower it and got immersed in work to pull me out of it. I spent time with my family and on other things I liked to do, to move my mind out of those stray thoughts. And while I had some success, there were still times, though with reduced intensity, where those thoughts crossed my mind and tried pulling me down.

Until egged on by my wife, I decided to stop feeling sorry about what happened and accept that the mishap could have been worse and that it was a good life lesson for me. I took out the good things from that lesson and stopped blaming myself or anyone else. I made my peace. And then slowly, the scar started healing. It is still not gone, but it surely is not as visible as before.

Sure, I did lose out on some opportunities and fell back a bit. I could not live upto the promises I made to myself and to others. But then, I realised that there’s more to life than one failure. And if I apply myself persistently and be resilient, I would be able to achieve something better. Success delayed but not denied.

As I drove around with a good friend yesterday, we talked about our scars and how we are dealing with them. He had a huge setback in life but due to his resilience and the persistent efforts he has made, he has got out of that zone and is moving ahead. Another friend has had a disappointing 2020 but is now determined to start afresh and has pushed doubts out of his mind and resolutely started seeking new opportunities.

Talking about such dismal things at the beginning of a new year may not be the most appropriate time. But for a lot of us, this is perhaps the best time to move out of whatever disappointing zones we have around us and forge ahead resolutely with a clean mind. For a happy 2021 and beyond…

Upwards and onwards then!

Corrections!

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

The other day, while her class was going on, I saw my daughter sitting with a sad face. Knowing that it was the arts class and the teacher was making the students draw something, I was surprised that she wasn’t enthusiastic about her favourite activity.

As I enquired with her, reluctantly at first, she mentioned that she wasn’t happy with what she had drawn. The teacher had asked them to draw a particular scenery and she had bungled up one part of it.

I sat her down and explained to her that it was fine and she could correct it. She had not really made a big mistake and she could just erase the wrong part and do it again. It took her sometime to process that thought and although initially she mentioned that she would want to draw the entire scenery again, she finally came around to correcting the mistake.

Being a stickler for perfection in whatever she does, I was surprised. I have seen her being extremely careful about how she draws the lines, the colours she chooses, the way she uses the scissors, and so on. If anything goes wrong, she tends to restart from the beginning. Or just drops that activity.

But this time, she chose not to. She instead decided to correct her mistake and move on with the same activity sheet. I happily realised that she had gained some bit of maturity over her earlier stiff stance. And as I reflected on it later, I realised that she had learnt an important trait.

Of accepting one’s mistake and making sure to correct it and continue, rather than starting again or leaving it altogether.

While she is a child and learning the ropes of life, it’s a simple but important lesson we as adults sometimes forget. Paving the way for confusion, anxiety, stress. We overburden ourselves and try and prove to others, rather than accepting the mistake, correcting it, and moving forward. Which is a rather costly affair at times.

But then, we have our egos to feed. And our minds to prove. Even if it is at the cost of others.

As I got over this thought, I made a note to myself to next time check for my behaviour. So that, I don’t make the mistake of covering up the mistakes that led to issues. And that I accept those mistakes, resolve those issues, and try as much as possible to carry on, for as long as possible…