Base camp of my life, our lives..

Another afternoon and gossip at the college canteen and then I was heading towards next class on marketing.

It was a normal, dull looking day that gave an entirely new direction to my life. I couldn't imagine that it would set up a launch pad for my life. If you've to scale the summits of the mountains, the base camp has to be strong and this one incident became the base camp of my life.

I don't forget to touch it, every time I need to rejuvenate my spirits.

My Marketing class had started but ended up sooner than it was supposed to be. The reason being, an event was scheduled at my college that was named as "Ad Mad" show. Two batches of MBA students, around 100 in number, were there to attend it.

Mr. Nikhil Mehta, I always takes pride in sharing his name, my marketing teacher, who was the person behind this major change in my life. I still bow before him.

He had identified the participants for the show a day before and named them out in the class. I was surprised to see my name in the list as I had never volunteered for it as I lacked confidence to perform in front of the huge crowd. After the class, I went to meet Mr. Mehta [referred as "Sir" in the later part, with due respect to him] and told him that I wish to withdraw my name from the show as I can't do it. He did not react much and said "Fine, I'll remove your name from the list".

I was so relieved and got very excited to be a part of the "audience" of the show.

The day came and the show was about to begin and sir pulled out a list with names of the participants that he had identified. The show was about selling a product, branding it and creating its punch line. Preparation time was just 10 minutes and the products were very unusual, like "Comb for a bald man", "Jeans for Sadhus" etc.

Sir started calling names of the participants [each group having 2 members], assigned them the products and sent them out of the hall for preparation.

I was shocked to see him calling my name and was feeling angry that despite of giving me a confirmation about removing my name from the list, how he could call it up at the last moment. I had no other option than to go out with my partner for preparation.

In a rush of fear, hurry and confusion, I prepared a punch line for the product and added it to the concept and ideas suggested by my other partner.

The show started and then it was our group’s turn to perform. We performed the act and at the end I narrated the punch line for the product that was given to us [We had got "Jeans for Sadhus"]. Our act had barely finished and the entire hall was there to give us a standing ovation. Tears felt flowing from my eyes and now I realized why Sir had not withdrawn my name from the list. Over the top of it, we were the proud winners of the contest and also for the “Best punch line for the show”. I couldn’t feel more proud of myself ever than at that moment.

After the show I went to meet my Sir, I thanked him for his decision and asked him why he had not withdrawn my name from the list.

What he said at that time became a launching pad for every decision of my life. He said, "I wanted you to learn a lesson: Do try it and never stop before you try!".

I still ask myself, had I not given it a try that day while being apprehensive of failures, would I have been able to take the major decisions of my life with lot more confidence..

So never stop because of the failures 'that may happen' else you'll never try and reach out to the hidden happiness within you.

Are we reactive by instinct or choice?

Is life all about choices and following our inner urges is merely a reactive action we take? Life is full of highs and lows but our tunnel vision makes us see only the lows and then we make plans to feel the highs of life, to be happy again. The search for happiness never ends and will never end as it is within us; it’s just that we have put blinds in front of our eyes and heart.

Let us talk about choices – most of us who are still in search of happiness make a choice to be reactive. We run after the rat race without realizing or knowing, what we really enjoy doing. For a short while, we feel that we’ve got everything in life, money, friends but then there is always an empty feeling somewhere telling us we are still not doing what we really enjoy doing. And then our reactive action begins. We undergo pangs of depression, frustration and look for happiness again.

Sometimes, we give excuses of circumstances and responsibilities but the world will not come to an end if we won’t do certain things. This does not mean we shall shirk our duties but just think, how can we make others happy if we are not happy ourselves? The difficulties of life look like a mountain to us and we forget doing what makes us happy – whether it is simply playing with kids, helping underprivileged or sometimes even our job. When a huge mountain is in front of us, how can we even look beyond that to see the beautiful sunrise? We tend to distract ourselves so much from the simplicity of life that after years of struggling and learning, we again end up making reactive decisions and again search for what really makes us feel happy.

No doubt, it takes years to build a position in the society, to live a luxurious lifestyle, to earn lot of money. But have we ever thought about the compromises that we make with our true ‘self’? The hidden potentials keep remaining hidden and then we are apprehensive about breaking those inhibitions and coming out of our artificially created comfort zones. Moreover, even if we realize this and take better decisions, even before we start, we again doubt ourselves and start with diffidence. We block ourselves from taking risks because we stop believing in ourselves. The ones who have made a difference in their lives had just been proactive, did what made them feel happy and have fought with their inhibitions and taken risks. Happiness is within us, we just have to make proactive choices.