Today, while having a conversation with one of my colleagues, I realized something that I never realized before. Albeit his age is 58 and mine is 24, life lessons are always useful.It was 1 pm and I was having my lunch. Out of a sudden, this aged person sitting just opposite in front of me initiated a conversation. “ Dante, do you love your work". 7 months into the job, now seemed like a perfect time to start framing an answer to this question. And since I had no qualms about being truthful, i replied, "It's okay. A little bit prosaic though.”
Sir-" So when you are going to get out of the circle?".
That caught me ofguard. Wasn’t this supposed to be a one line question and a one line answer? “What do you mean, sir?, I asked confused. “You know Dante, there are three kinds of person in life. You are an engineer, so let me explain this with a mathematical analogy.”. Sure, please proceed Sir. He began what would be one of the simplest and most profound lesson of my life.
"1+1 can be 11, it can be 2 or else a zero. Do you know who regret the most in life? The people who fall in "1+1 =2” equation. They look at 11 and 0 wondering where they belong? They are perplexed because they are better but not the best. Knowing everything, they feel benighted. They look at 0 and consider themselves supercilious but have this uncanny sensation that they are missing something in life? They can’t be that good to not to be missing out on something, right? And yet, the persisting question, why can’t they be happy like the Zeroes? And then there are the Elevens. They look at 11s and wonder why they can’t be that successful? What is wanting inside of them? They have aspirations but they are not ready to sacrifice – their time, their efforts, their reputation, wondering about the many speculations that will arise.
They always think and think and that's why they regret the most.”. The clock said 2 PM and my lunch time was over. This conversation could’ve been over or could’ve continued. My work awaited though.“Okay sir, bye .It was nice talking to you.” He replied in the most (could it be?) poignant tone,“You may not realize it now, but after a certain period, when you will grow old like me, you will realize this for sure. Now it’s up to you whether you want to have that realization and that too towards the end of your life.”
The last lines forced me to put a deep thought to what I discussed with him. Then I remembered a question I had read on quora, "What do successful people do to reach their goal”. The answer was simple-.99^365=.0255 and 1.01^365=37.75 .This answer received a whooping 10k up votes. No person in life realizes their upgradation or degradation based on an instant or a worst case scenario, we don't realize it ever actually. But when I look back at those 10 yrs. and try to connect the dots, I realized that this answer is practically a valid one. One thing about successful people is that they grow a thick skin for failures and insults.
It took 22 years for Fischer to create a historical game against Spassky.
It took Messi 17 years to learn that left - right foot combination.
Jack Maa applied for 24 jobs and failed 24 times. He is now the owner of a 28 billion $ organization.
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper job because he lacked imagination and creativity.
There are plentiful such examples all around us. We are the standards of our own mindsets, if we create like the Elevens, we will be like them or else, we will have to satisfy ourselves with the mere thought that we are better than the zeroes.
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