Have we lost trust in TRUST?

I have often wondered, has the world really progressed? To most of us, this question has an obvious answer and that’s a yes. Up until now, I also used to think the same but most recently I came across an incident which made me realize that progress has multiple dimensions. Which aspect of the progress are we talking about is an important question as well. While on the front of technology, science we have definitely progressed but in these scheme of things I think we have missed out a progress on developing human trust. Its almost like when a stranger says something, the 1^st response internally is most likely – no way, can’t be that, don’t believe you or some form of it. Most of our response has a negative tone to it although it could be expressed as a dis-belief or surprise or amazement. I think we need to differentiate between the core feeling and how we express it. Most people, I have seen, get confused between the two.

Anyway, it’s a pity that despite such long history of our existence, we have not been able to trust each other. Every time there is a financial transaction, we ask for receipts, contracts and what not. Documents like passport become your identity whereas the human him/herself becomes evidence. An alive man is not a proof of him being alive - thats ridiculous and scary. 

I acknowledge that any action human takes is on the basis of certain past learnings but then instead of investing so much time and money in developing in materialistic fields, why cant we spend 10% of that time and money on developing human trust for each other.

I don’t have an answer to how can we make it happen but a fact that if one can fall in love with another person still exists in our society, why cant the same feeling be expanded to humans in general? When you fall in love and ultimately marry the other person, it’s a leap of faith you take in a way that assures you within, that everything will be alright and in most cases it is. Then why cant we take the same leap of faith in trusting other humans?

To me, trust is a positive thing and believe me, world needs a lot of positivity now more than ever before. Just examine your personal life and see how trust plays a role in making things easier, simpler and stronger for you. Life is so much fun at home and you don’t need to worry about a lot of things because there is a trust in the people around you. We just need to get this same feeling out there and develop that trust.

Naturally, the other side of this coin is being able to elicit that trust from others. The answer to that is removing self-biased intentions which are subjective and be more objective in our interactions with others. Most of the time the objective is same but ways are different. As we get hung up on our idea, we fail to see the others’ idea and its merits. Collaboration and synergy only become words without actual behaviours behind them. I don’t understand the desperate need to prove ourselves right and if 2 ideas show equal merit, then there can be a way to choose which one to proceed with without having to fight over it. The whole point is once we give a pure thought and put pure efforts behind something, we should stop worrying about its existence in future. There is something called Destiny and if things are done with pure intentions, they take care of themselves. You become a channel of its existence from its creator. You support the idea and not the other way around. I think once we accept this role change of ours from creator to a channel, things like ego, fear of losing reputation will eventually die down and make you a more humble person and a more helpful person. And I believe humility, helpfulness will be able to elicit that trust from others.

The question remains: are you able to trust me and show willingness to accept that this is the need of this hour? Or will you go back to what you’ve been doing in the belief that one alone can’t make a change?  All big changes begin from one person, one moment and with one leap of faith. Are you brave enough to take that one leap of faith? The answer lies within you. If not others, Trust yourself...

A thought and a learning...

It’s that time of the year where in India, the wedding preparations in many homes would take a full swing with only a quarter of a year to go for the big fat Indian wedding season. It’s this period where you would see families rushing here and there for the final stretch. While some families would have it all figured out, some would still be making their final calls. Given the grandiose nature of Indian weddings and the amount of organization dexterity it requires, it’s not hard to imagine that at these times, if the couple getting married is extremely busy in deciding what they want to wear, how they want to look, how they want the things to be on the D-day while spending these some final moments knowing the person more and better to whom they are going to commit themselves for the whole life may take a back seat. Some may argue that the commitment and knowing the other person would have happened long time back when they first got engaged then why think now? Well, you know how life is, it changes, people change, their behaviors change, for good or for bad but it changes. And in the bigger scheme of things, we miss to realize these small gradual changes. The initial rosy meetings, those initial moments however romantic they were, do reflect some kind of an effort, honest or otherwise, on the part of both the guy and the girl. Slowly, as the feeling that you are with someone sinks in, you either change yourself or your true comfort zone comes out. Some of those little significant things you did for making the other person feel good about you starts to become a task. You may itch for a break from something that has become a routine now. Not that its bad, you obviously want to be true to yourself as much as possible and be sane but at the same time don’t want your flaws to move you away from the person you’ve come to love since that first spark. It’s that point in your life where the connect is still there but may be its taken away that time away from you which you spent on your own and may be you have not got used to this change just yet. I know the brides and grooms know each other well and probably still do so each day hopefully. But if you ask them what they have learned new about their partner today, they may find hard to articulate it but the moment you ask them what’s happening on the preparations, they will go on about it for next 30 mins. It’s funny to me. I don’t say I behaved differently though, but that’s our culture you see. Marriages in India are big, are like a festival. Yes, sure they are but should they happen at the cost of diverting your time and energy to something that’s going to last one day? Or should you rather have that time and energy spend on knowing the other person better which is going to impact you your whole life? If you were to mask this situation and remove marriage out of it and instead say it’s an investment for the whole life where there is most likely no backing out and ask any sane person to choose, he or she is likely to choose the 2nd option. Think about it. I am confused by the way our society works. I wish things were simpler and may be more focused on couple getting married vs. focusing on looking & behaving like celebrities and calling 1000+ folks to your wedding, 75% of whom you have never met before and are sure to never meet again in this lifetime.

Anyway, given this situation which our culture and we put ourselves in; it’s bound to create some tough situations after marriage. Not saying that if you had known person for like a decade then such situations won’t come up. They still would and there is no escape from this – we all know it and this conflict is an integral part of human nature. In fact, these situations may also happen before marriage. However, the focus should then be on how can you minimize them and keep them at a level that does not destroy your happiness? What Archita and I have learned so far is that in these situations, we ought to remember that we have married a human being. A human who is same as us, who is as fallible and flawed as us. Their faults could be different than ours but they are still faults. Don’t expect the other person to always understand you and don’t doubt his or her intentions. Have a discussion and don’t let it turn into an argument. Remember, you are also in this as much as he or she is. However, simple this may sound; you will still fail to see it that way once the situation comes to your own door (ask me about it :)). The best thing to do in these situations is to be objective and behave without any bias. Ego has no place in the marriage but at the same time it does not cost you your self-identity. No situation and no person will ask for a change in your identity as asking about it would mean they want to change your true nature. The same nature that made them fall in love with you and commit them to you. Unless, you have painted a completely different picture and set different expectations then no one can save you.


So, apart from investing time in knowing the other person more and better, the critical piece is being true to yourselves and to the other person right from the beginning all the way through and at the same time making flexibility (not same as compromise) a part of your efforts to grow together in the relationship. Keep calm and leave the rest to your karma.

No Hiatus anymore

It’s been a hiatus of 2.5 years since I last wrote on this blog. A lot has happened in these months, a lot has been learnt, and a lot has been experienced. Never been in a relationship before, I found myself in an unknown world – a world which demanded my undivided attention, a world which made me feel like a toddler again, a world which showed me a completely different aspect of life. I would not be honest if I said I did not have a good personal life before – yes there were friends, cousins and family events. As much as I loved all of them, there was something amiss. One part of me always felt incomplete and lacked something. When my friends, cousins discussed about the dynamics of an intimate relationship, my views and opinions, although real, lacked a backing of a first-hand experience. I have always felt strongly about what I say and believe in it whole-heartedly but one thing that always gave me that resolute was personal experience. This personal experience was not there when it came to life-partner sort of relationships.

As a student of life, I missed out on seeing a world where the actual balance of life comes into play. At a stage of life, when I was doing well professionally and when I was ready to embrace a personal change, Archita came into my life. We have been together since Jan 2012 and 1 year into marriage, I must say that I now understand some of the things, good and otherwise, I heard about intimate relationships. I now understand why some relationships succeed and why they fail. As a principle of life, I have always been open to anything new that comes my way – not that I don’t have any idea about it, but I don’t have pre-conceived notions either. I take it as it comes; adapt myself as per the need and make the best of it. Following the same, I entered into this new world. Being the person I am, I always need some goal – some kind of timeline and I must say this runs into the genes of my family. First thing, we as a family did was to start planning the wedding, the when, the where and the how and it had been just 20 days so far that I had known Archita. Thinking retrospectively, it may seem a bit scary that knowing someone for just 20 days and we were already in the middle of committing each other for life. If I were a person with some experience in this, I would have been a lot scared and completely deny taking this step but incidentally, I was not. May be there was some astronomic connect or some strings the Almighty pulled that we all were moving ahead without an iota of doubt. May be that’s how arranged marriages work, I thought to myself. 29^th Jan 2012 was the day when both families committed to this arrangement and much to the surprise of all who know me; I was not around that day. I chose to give only virtual presence to the entire ceremony through Skype and much to her disappointment; Archita had to begin representing the both of us socially from that day onwards. Not that I did not want to be there but I wanted to avoid going to Mumbai only for a weekend when I had just came back from a good 2 weeks break and resumed work. If I think back now, may be that comfort of not being there physically and still both families and Archita taking that step without hesitation was something that gave me confidence and belief that this relationship has a potential to be committed to. I don’t know, maybe that’s why I was willing to risk this big step on my 26^th birthday. Anyway, things began for us from thereon. We had chats during the day on whatsapp and then Skype in the eves – compensating for my over-working nature, time difference worked in our favor as by the time my work day ended, her work day ended as well. Initially, I had to make special efforts to talk and interact with her as it was not my usual routine so to say. But as days passed by, I began looking forward to the Skype calls and drew myself away from my usual plans. I remember spending hours and hours over the weekends watching the English TV series I was addicted to but all those hours had come down to a minimal level since we began to start knowing each other through virtual medium. With all these interactions and the emotional connect arising from thereon, I think I wanted my trip in India in May 2012 to go on forever – just felt that time should stop by for once. I had a fantastic time in that trip, stayed with her for almost all days travelling in Mumbai and Gujarat, meeting all the closed family members and friends – our first memory, our first public appearances. Months passed by immersing ourselves in the preparations for the wedding, it was almost like a project – coordinating travel for 150 odd people from Mumbai to Surat, booking tickets, budgeting, planning the events, choosing what to wear and all that comes-in with an usual Indian wedding. My being in Singapore did not really hinter the way the plans were executed much to the help of some awesome friends, a superb brother (may I be I will write about him someday) and obviously Archita – she just impressed with how she had already emotionally married me – making my plans as our plans and making everything under my responsibilities as hers. I can’t thank her enough for that gesture and her family’s efforts in really fading away that line of what a family’s responsibilities are when it comes to an arranged marriage situation. May be I had come misconceptions about arranged marriages but then may be those were just misconceptions which got cleared away one by one. May be that’s the reason I was willing to go a bit overboard with having a reception the same day – I was against it, I did not want to have that purely from cost standpoint but then eventually I went along with that idea considering that Archita’s family and Archita wanted to have it. The wedding made me realize quite a few dreams I had and I remember discussing some of them with my close friends. Now when I look back, I really don’t remember planning to achieve them but the way things had gone in my life from 2011 onwards eventually helped in achieving those hidden dreams. I would not say it was a big fat Indian wedding – we did not aim it to be one, we wanted a wedding which reflects who I am and who my partner is. It is the way we wanted to be and after discussing with Archita during and after the wedding, it looks like we just had that – our wedding, our way.  

Since the wedding, we have had a whole new life, both Archita and me. We have both realized how different the virtual connect is from the real world interactions. Nevertheless, one year of the journey together has given both us that hope, that much required boost, that missing piece to see life till the very end of it with a feeling of being complete within…

This has not come with so much ease as one would want to be and neither has it come at the expense of being happy. But more on my experience from the maiden year of our marriage in my next post…

2.5 months and beyond...

It has been 2.5 months now since I moved from India to Singapore. When I first came to know that Life has presented me an opportunity to move away from my home, various thoughts ran across my mind – all offering me different perspectives concerning my personal life, my family, my friends, my marriage plans and my professional life. The thought or a perspective that made me take the decision of taking this up was to experience this phase of moving away from home, from my comfort zone, from a dependent life to something which puts me through situations testing my patience, questioning my resolute to manage my life, challenging my determination to live life the way I want to, asking me if I can lead an independent life and evaluating if I am ready to take on life & manage my family in times coming ahead.

When the first thought of getting married ran across my mind half a year back or so, I asked myself how can I let an important person about to come in my life be partially (partial because women today are more independent than ever) dependent on me when I don’t know whether I can depend on myself? How can I take the partial responsibility of another person when I don’t know if I am capable of taking my own? How can I help manage her life, her issues and her situations when I don’t know if I can manage my own? Though I agree and believe that life is much livelier and blissful than to worry about these odd problems. But, then Life is quite uncertain and it’s in best interest of an individual to be prepared for worse happenings in life. After seeing and going through the past decade, I firmly believe the fact that anything, good or bad, can happen in this damn world.

So, here I am 2.5 months into this experience sitting on my bed thinking about it. These months have been busy to have not given me a moment to sit and think if the perspective with which I took this decision, is proving its worth. Am I worth going through this phase? Am I making myself ready to take on life ahead? Now is the time to think I say to myself.

I would not say I am 100% ready to take the next step but am definitely going in the right direction. That’s a good news. Thinking about these 2.5 months, it has made me see a few things not seen before, taught me a things which I never knew I would need to learn and gave me more insights into what kind of a person I am. It has made me realize some new talents I possess, some more imperfections that I have and has taught me how to praise yourself when I do something good for myself and how to rebuke myself when I know I could have done better. These observations for me are as minor as sleeping on time or waking up on time and as big as buying necessities for myself, cooking for myself or even ironing my clothes (this is most painful). Some may argue that how can sleep on time or ironing can be indicators of whether someone is going in the right direction or not? I would say – Why not? I mean those are the indicators as knowledge, balance and perfection in these minor things that impact our daily lives lead to our desire of being perfect in things which has larger impact on life.

Consider this, generation today rightly considers Men and Women to be on par. I respect this sentiment and believe in it. As we all know gone are those days when women in the house used to clean utensils, cooked for the family and managed household. Now, everything is balanced by both husband and wife. Today, men are expected to know atleast the basic household stuff and rightly so. So, when I say I am making myself aware, knowledgeable and balancing myself in doing these activities, I am somewhere getting ready to take the next step. These minor things instill discipline in life when it requires one.

Though I would not say I am ‘Sanjeev Kapoor or even close to being 1/10th of him’ when it comes to cooking, but I can definitely make myself breakfast, tea, coffee and am trying to make myself lunch and dinner too (Today I cooked khichdi for myself – it was not a bad attempt at all). I am definitely punctual when it comes to making things happen at the right time (this one I am happy about – because back in India, I was known to be punctual and when I came here, I needed to prove to myself that I can be punctual here too even if I have to do many more things than earlier to be on time). It has become a habit now. I do not iron my clothes like it may have come from a 5 star laundry but am sure you would not see a crease in the trousers I wear and this is something just like cooking which improves over time and am sure it will one day look like coming from a 5 star laundry.

It may happen that when something new comes in life, it replaces or deletes something old. But, doing all these tasks and trying to do them perfectly has not made me sacrifice any of my previous habits like reading or writing. I would say 24 hours are as long as you want them to be. I am resting more than ever on weekends, play badminton every Sunday morning and roam around to explore the place.

All in all, this experience has proved to be worthwhile until now. I know many of my friends have gone through this similar phase in past 3-4 years and I just want to say that I was proud of them and now going through a similar experience myself – I am even more proud of them. They would know I am talking about them when they read this.

Not that only people who stay away from home can learn these things, some people do learn it while being in their home as well and this happens when a balanced mind who has gone through this earlier in his/her life passes on this knowledge to his/her next generation. I know of one such family and am happy to have known them, being with them and learned from them. So, having gone through this, I will ensure my kid(s) know what it means to lead an independent life and make them prepared for it while they still stay in their home.

Next update on this would be when I complete half year here. Adios.

Take care and Keep smiling   

Self-Acceptance

Humans have been living in groups since the time we have known to be existed on this planet. The importance of living in groups has been so much dominant in nature that all our older customs, traditions, rites and rituals have been governed around the fact of being accepted by a group of people who lived around us. But as human race progressed, the rituals and rites started getting challenged by few individuals who thought that these made no logical and human sense. Despite the efforts to abolish them have been successful, but I think the underlying reason of getting accepted by a group which caused those rituals to exist in the very first place is still there. It is just that the means of demonstrating that reason has changed today. Now, it has taken the form of being accepted in high-society parties, recognized by elite group of individuals etc.

I do not say that getting accepted by a group is not important; obviously it is. But, is that acceptance higher than self-acceptance? I do not think so.

What I have been observing since quite some time now is that getting accepted by a group is knowingly or unknowingly taking higher precedence over self-acceptance. Now, this as per me is not only wrong but also dangerous for the person exhibiting this behaviour. This is because a person who gives importance of getting accepted by others over self-acceptance often loses his/her self-identity. There are situations which often makes him/her stand in that grey area where his/her actual desire is not fulfilled because a group around expects something else.

Now, the situation worsens when there are 2 different groups present in the same situation with the person himself/herself and both the groups think in different directions, behave differently and expect different behaviour from the person under consideration. In fact, if we think to ourselves, how many times have we encountered in our lives that a group of friends expect something while our parents, relatives expect something else. And while we know our family comes first than friends, we still behave otherwise. Here, one would argue that this is a matter of just a wish and a generation gap, but then if we think more on this, we would realize that it is actually more than that. It is a matter of putting ourselves so very clear right from the start that the group around knows how are we going to behave in a given situation which would ultimately subside the expectations that people might have with us. And putting ourselves very clear from the right would mean to accept ourselves as we are, accept what we actually want and act on it. Obviously, there are certain wants which are not socially acceptable and hence in those cases we should choose to go by the social norms set. But, being human and considering completely rationale behaviour that we may demonstrate; self-acceptance is bound to make life much easier for all of us.

Self-acceptance by no means is an easy process as it requires breaking certain beliefs that we have built over the years, beliefs that success comes to us when a group around us believes it, beliefs that happiness is the one which makes majority of the people around us smile; but instead success can be realized even when our own heart thinks we are, happiness can be the one which brings smile even on one face. Likewise, there are many beliefs we have built over the years which are directly or indirectly governed by giving more importance to the group-acceptance philosophy rather than giving self-acceptance philosophy its due importance prior to group-acceptance philosophy.

Self-acceptance does not end by accepting self; it extends to accepting how others are as they are. At this moment what I can clearly remember is what one of my good friends PS, an active AOL student, said “Accepting others what they are and how they behave with you makes oneself free of all hatred and grudges which may sub-consciously get registered in our hearts. Often, when we have something in mind which we have not accepted, it leads to feeling of negativity and makes us non-receptive to other fresh ideas and positive things around us as the limited space inside us is still occupied by thoughts and feelings which are negative and doing no good to us”. What she meant to say, which I realize is that, we cannot change people how they are and the way they behave with us but what we can definitely change is our attitude towards people which should be of accepting them as they are rather than keeping in our minds about how they should not have behaved. And if I have to put my personal experience at play, I can cite an instance where I myself after having fallen prey to group-acceptance philosophy have recovered by going the self-acceptance philosophy way. And since then, my life has been much easier.

Don’t believe me? Just seat back and imagine for a moment, we are in a society where we have around us; the people against whom we have no grudges, no ill-feelings, no inhibition within ourselves as to how we should behave but instead what we are doing is just being ourselves. Would not be our life easier then?

A New Phase begins….

Life for all of us can be divided in phases with each phase having different things in store for us. With the end of every phase, there is a hope for a better new phase. We all set out to experience that with certain expectations and certain rules that we decide within ourselves to follow in this new phase. May it be going from school to Junior college, JC to Graduate, Graduate to Post-Graduate and finally from PG to Work Life.

Whatever mistakes we make in last phase, we learn from it so we don’t repeat it and all successes in last phase help us improve the strengths and this collective (a mixed bag of) experiences help us make our new phase a better one. Till the time we reach Post-Graduate phase, we always are in a secured environment, secured by our parents, our friends, our teachers and most importantly controls designed by the authorities that help us not to deviate from our limits.

But, then comes a phase of corporate life, which by almost every mean is a different and unique in regards to what it has to offer us. Though parents are always there, but they do not have that direct an influence over the behavior of external factors. Same is the case with our friends, here they are replaced by colleagues or work associates if I may use the sophisticated term who in an indirect manner are positive competitors. There are no teachers; there are seniors, managers, Directors and VPs. Though the role they play is similar to teachers; something that is very important to determine how you will perform in your corporate life.

But, very often there are not those controls on how will you deal with a business situation. Everything here is left to our capabilities and abilities to think & execute differently. We don’t know your limits and we come to know about them when we cross them. While in our earlier phases; there were KT exams or a chance to appear again, they are a rare case when it comes to corporate. In today’s competitive world, businesses can’t take chances with under-performers and there is no just passing marks scenario here. We are either average to top performer or a failure and fired.

Keeping this in mind, this phase brings in a lot of anxiety, some expectations that we have from ourselves because of successes in our past phases, some “look-out for potholes” that we get to hear as an advice from our well wishers all around. This anxiousness, expectation, emotions running across, thoughts in the mind and all that make us impulsive at times which may not be the best solution to the issues because what is more important is “Finding a solution to the problem and not just answering the question” and it is not about finding “Who is right?” but the real success is to find “What is right?” and in the search of this, we reach excellence which matters more than anything else.

So, what I am trying to say to myself and to all my fellow friends, classmates and colleagues is that Life is not going to be as rosy as it was till now and now is the time to be the “Hero”. Leading student councils and being a team player till now is obviously a learning experience in itself, but the real application of what we learned till now is NOW. Some of us may have never been a part of any councils or committees but still can be top leaders of future while some of us who may have been can never guarantee their success ahead. So, in this uncertain yet exciting phase what matters is how positive, calm and dynamic we are when a situation or an issue confronts us.

So, folks let us all stay positive, keep it cool and be as dynamic as we can as this new phase begins so that we can be the Hero/Heroine of our real lives.

Take care & Keep Smiling !!!

Experience It

When I was a kid, I used to be very choosy about vegetables I ate; My Mom then told me how can you not like a particular vegetable when you have not tried it even once? (I am sure many people reading this are able to somewhere link with either themselves or have seen someone doing this). I neither listened to her then nor do I follow that now when it comes to vegetables or food in general. But somehow deep within I knew, she was right and may be that is the reason I have developed this mentality to “Experience a thing to comment on anything that I encounter everyday in my life.”

One of things that I have been observing day in and day out with people is the critic approach they all try to take toward anything and everything; may it be lectures, professors, colleges, meetings, projects, companies, people etc.

A dialogue between me and one of my friends goes as follows:

Friend: Hey I am not going to attend that new sessions that college has arranged for us..

Me: Why not?

Friend: It will be the same old gyaan that they will give, and I don’t find much value in it..

Me: Have you sat for this session somewhere sometime before?

Friend: No, I have not sat but I just don’t want to attend it either.

Me: Why?

Friend: Chuck na..

From this dialogue I can make out that my friend with no solid logic feels (not thinks) it’s a waste of his/her 2 days of life attending something which he/she thinks is not going to help him/her get through placements but just another farce much like other initiatives which have failed or did not leave up to his/her expectations. The key thing I thought here was that my friend considered it was a waste of time whereas I consider it as an investment of time. (Folks lose their money in share market and call it investment went bad, they never say they wasted money so why is it different when it comes to time? Perhaps a question that we all need to ask ourselves). Secondly, if 99 initiatives fail, that does not mean 100^th one will also fail. The 100^th one might be that breakthrough event which you have been looking for all your life.

An example comes to my mind is:

A company in finance field came with a marketing profile for executive placements to our college, which many people thought would be same as offered by other companies that came on campus earlier and considered those profiles as not attractive. So, this time people did not bother to sit even for the Pre-Placement Talk (PPT) of this company where details of profiles are shared by the company with the candidates. It turned out to be a rocking profile having great things to offer to candidate who got through it. What happened here is exactly the same thing which I have been observing, forming opinions on the past failures but gone wrong in interpretation, which according to me is pessimistic view of life. Though failures help us learn from our mistakes but those lessons are from the mistakes done by us, something which is an internal factor. We just can’t form an opinion on external factors as they are out of our control. Our reactions to them are what we can control and something which we can opine about, so in this case if after attending PPT (External factor), people decide to move out or stay in (Internal Factor) is a fair call to take. So, not attending PPT (External factor) was the mistake people made and may be missed out on a decent opportunity. What I liked more about the candidate who got through is that he/she did not fall into the trap of a situation which I am talking about.

Leaving that aside, what happens in majority of the other cases is, people form opinions on the basis ofothers opinions. “I did not do a particular thing because my friend who did the same thing earlier did not like it, so I would also not like it.” This is the reason people give when I ask them about it. We all know that all humans are unique in the way we think, react, respond, judge, emote etc. Though opinions might come out to be same when you go through that particular thing, but how can we possibly form opinions without going through that experience? Often my friends ask me why you were silent when we were discussing that topic; I say “I can’t comment because I have not gone through that experience which gives me food for thought to comment on it.” My belief is that an experience of going through a particular thing gives you food for thought to comment on it, suggest improvements on it etc. (The main difference between a movie critic and normal public is, critic comments after he/she watches the movie while we normal public comment even before watching it and perhaps not even watching it ever).

The reason I think this mentality of commenting without experiencing is bad because tomorrow we all are going to work in an environment which is challenging, thought-provoking and would require our thought processes to have rationale behind each and every decision we make. If our opinions continue to be based on others or external factors of a situation, then there would be no innovation and no uniqueness which would set us apart from rest.

Currently, I am reading a book “The Execution” in which authors state that (Not a verbatim) “Having a strategy is not enough, it is successful when leaders suggesting strategy knows how that strategy will be executed because ultimately strategies are meant to be executed in real world. If strategy requires a company to have these many rupees, these many workers, these capabilities and if all these are not present, then how will the strategy be executed? The reason why we have Great companies and poor companies is the difference in execution-based thinking. In great companies, leaders suggesting strategy, know in details how a particular step would work in what conditions and what will be the competitive edge we will get by doing that step. Everything in details is fixed in leaders mind. The reason he/ she can do that is that he/she has gone through doing that himself/herself or observed on field how will that be done with the help of experts. So, while Strategy is important to have, executing-based thought process while designing that strategy is also important and this can happen only after strategist has an experience of how things get done.”

So what I am trying to say is that though the mentality of “commenting on something without experiencing it” has smaller implication now because it does not affect us that much, but after reading this book, I have strengthened my belief that it will definitely have larger than life impact when we go out there are in corporate. We are what we develop ourselves right from our birth. What we are today is because of our thoughts and actions in past. So, what will we be tomorrow is the result of what we think and do today.

The edge that we get by experiencing something and then commenting is that even if we are challenged on our opinions, our thoughts, our emotions, we can justify them through the thought process on the basis of which we have arrived at certain conclusions or formed opinions. Another analogy that comes to mind is the day to day presentations, projects and assignments that we present to professors. If we don’t experience it, our views will be challenged and most of the times, we are screwed by professors (or an expert in that field) or colleagues who are allowed to ask questions and raise an objection to the point we are making in the presentation. While those who have experienced a project, will always be happy to answer questions and handle objections positively (By Experiencing a project I mean Living with it and attaching yourself with it, speaking about it, singing it, dancing it, eating it, drinking it, sleeping with its thoughts in mind, feeling it). This is a differentiating factor.

Just as such experiences occur every day in a student’s life, it is just our attitude to observe and learn from it, which I think will take us to next level and prepare us for bigger and tougher challenges that come as we move ahead on our journey of success.

So, those who already are “Experiencing It before commenting”, kudos to you all and those who don’t have it; might agree or disagree with this, but to disagree, you will have to “Experience it” and those who agree, please start “Experiencing it”.

Take Care and Keep Smiling.