...and then, I stopped judging everyone

Whenever I’m sad because of others judging (misjudging) me, I feel frustrated and furious that why are they forming assumptions and opinions when they don’t know my whole story? But after a bit of introspection, I realized one thing and asked myself ‘Don’t I do the same sometimes?’

If you try to think about it, you’d find countless examples when you must have judged others without knowing their whole story.

For example:

Whenever we see any successful person, we automatically assume that he must be hardworking, super talented, ethical, and N number of positive things. We attribute all the good qualities to that person.

But whenever we see an average person or say a person whom the world considers as a “failure”, we again assume that he must be lazy, unmotivated, dumb, and N number of negative qualities.

In short, we assume that the external circumstances of a person is followed by his efforts only.

But reality is far from this. See, we make a mistake by believing that the result of equation is determined by the things which are in our hand only. In life, there are also number of things to the left side of equation which are beyond our hand.

Let me explain it with the help of diagram shown below. Observe it carefully.

 

The diagram represents conditions of two persons which consists of two lines and few boxes. The bottom line is the start line, the green box represents variables like family to which a person is born, privileges like family wealth, better opportunities, etc. The red box represents talent or passion possessed by a person and the black box indicates variable which is in the hand of a person, i.e. efforts or hard work. Note that each box has different height, which means the height is proportional to the amount of a particular variable. The line at the top represents a limit above which a person is said to be leading a respected or successful life. For the sake of simplicity, I have named it as escape line as above that level, a person would be able to escape the lower level of life.

Now let’s discuss the situation of Person 1.

You can see that as the height of green box is more in this case, Person 1 is born to wealthy parents who are well educated and have good contacts.

He wants to become an entrepreneur. Moreover, he is also very talented. His parents has influential contacts. They taught him from the very young age that what he needs to do to become an entrepreneur. So he got the guidance as well. They had the resources to provide him a quality education. Now think that how hard it would be for him to succeed and lead a comfortable life? Not much, because he is born in a well to do family and his parents have the resources. So he has got the right environment to flourish, and talent to make it easier.

Let’s come to Person 2 now:

He also wants to become an entrepreneur. Now call it his bad luck or whatever, but he is born to poor parents who can barely make their ends meet. The environment in his home is very toxic as his parents are fighting most of the time. As a result, he is not able to focus on his studies and gets bad grades. After his graduation, he doesn’t have a privilege to chase his dream and start a business as he has a responsibility to feed his parents. So he starts a job with a below average pay as he didn’t have good grades. He works damn hard but no matter how much efforts he puts in, it’d be immensely hard for him to reach that escape line as he didn’t have other variables going for him.

Now see the right most side in the diagram. It shows that if Person 2 had born with the same privileges as Person 1 and had got the right guidance, resources, he would have been far ahead than Person 1 as he is more hard working.

These are just hypothetical examples but if you see around, you’d find countless similar examples.

But what we should learn from above diagram is we should not judge a person by his current situation or end result, but rather how much efforts he is putting in. Because situation of any person is a combined result of variables which are beyond his control and which are in his control. If you want to judge him at all, then please judge him by the variables which are in his control and not by his result. Because result don't define a person’s character but his efforts do.

So from the next time, whenever you see a person who is not so successful, don’t assume things and give him labels like lazy, unsuccessful but try to understand his circumstances and appreciate him for whatever he has done till now. This may not help him to succeed but would surely bring a smile to his face for being kind and considerate.

 

This is why you can't work hard

Do you ever find yourself in a state where you can't work hard despite knowing that it is the need of the hour?

Off course you have!

In fact, everyone of us have gone through the same at least once in our life.

You get motivated to do something...

You decide to go for it...

You set specific goals...

You make a plan to make it happen...

You begin with all your enthusiasm but all the motivation is gone in between and there.... exactly there you give up when you don't see any results and get demotivated.

It shouldn't happen, right?

I mean you know what needs to be done,

You have all the resources to do it,

You have made your mind to do it

Yet for some reasons, after some time or attempts, you give in and you are back to where you started.

The point is, what causes this?

I know the reason behind this from my experience.

I think the major reason we can't work hard or find it difficult to work consistently is we are not clear WHY we should do it in the first place!

You see where we get it wrong?

Lack of clarity about the reason

Let's understand it by an example:

Assume you are in a college and you want to get placed in your college placements.

You know what you need to do for this:

study hard, maintain a good mark sheet throughout your college, prepare for interviews.

But how many students from your batch manage to crack this code?

Only a handful, right?

While a majority of the students don't get any job offers.

So what is the reason behind this?

Lack of talent?

I don't think so, because all the students are in the same college so it's safe to assume that they have at least the intellectual ability to crack the initial tests if they put enough efforts.

In fact, I have even seen the most intelligent one not getting placed and the average making it through!

Lack of time?

Everyone gets 24 hours in the day, no more...no less

So what is the reason?

The main factor here is the clarity.

From my personal experience, I can say for sure that generally the ones who get placed have the strong reasons and clarity about why they need to get placed.

For some, it might be money,

For some, it may be their dream company or job.

But everyone of them have one thing in common, they know WHY they need to get placed.

Thus, the clarity is the thing which sets them apart from the ones who couldn't make it and not intelligence, having extra time or anything of that.

This just doesn't apply to one thing. It's true for any aspect of our life.

If you have enrolled for gym and find it difficult to maintain discipline, then be clear about WHY you want to go to the gym.

The reason might be to be healthier

 or 

To feel positive

 or

To attract hot girls

It might be anything but be clear about it and then see how easy it becomes!

Why having a reason is important in life?

Whenever you start something, if you are clear about why you want to do or achieve something, you don't need external motivation to perform the required steps.

What really happens is since you are clear about your why, it is less likely that you'd be influenced by other factors that would distract you.

The surprising thing is, you can use this clarity to beat the masses who are more smart or luckier than you but don't have the clarity.

Many folks believe that they need to be intelligent to become successful in a particular field. Which is false. 

I'm not saying intelligent is not required. It surely helps. But it's not the deciding factor.

Coming back to the point, let's say you are average and want to become successful in a particular field. 

You don't have a kick start but you have one asset to your side, CLARITY. 

If you are clear about your WHY, it'd be much easier for you to figure things out in the process. You just have to start. In this era of internet, you have all the required information at just one click.

See the big companies around you and observe their owners and founders. Do you think that they possess more technical knowledge than the thousands of smart employees who work for them? 

Hell no!

The reason why those SMART people work for founders is that they had the vision and knew why they wanted to start a particular thing.

So from now on, whenever you find it difficult to take required steps, don't doubt your abilities or change plan or overthink anything. Because these are not the root causes. The main problem lies in not having clarity. So just sit down and think "Why do I need to do this?", "Why doing this will help me?", "How is it going to make my life better?"

I'm pretty sure that once you are able to answer all these questions clearly, the rest will fall in place.

Just remember that before starting anything new, instead of making perfect plan or second guessing your abilities, if you put even half of those efforts in making your reasons to begin stronger, you'd be in  much better state.

Things I wish someone had told my 20 year old self

 

Oftentimes, you must be feeling that you wish that you knew some things earlier so that you could do those things better. Currently, I'm 23 and when I look back now, I also feel the same. Based on my little experience with life, I'm sharing some pieces of advice which can help you. While it's true that we can learn from our mistakes but life is too short to learn from our mistakes so try to learn from others' mistakes too!

This might be a long read but I can assure you that it's worth it.

 Make your health a priority

There is no point of having millions in your bank account if you are not healthy enough to enjoy your life. You would feel that you can do anything if you are healthy. So treat your body like a temple.

Don't stress out too much

Stressing out about pretty much everything is totally not worth it. Over 95% of scenario you are imagining in your head would never happen in reality. Worrying isn’t going to make it any better and not to mention its negative impacts on your mental and physical health. So worry less and enjoy more. Just trust the process and do what is needed, everything else will be taken care of.

Make the best use of college

College is not just for attending lectures. There also exists a world outside the academia which would teach you far more than books. College is the best time to come out of your shell. Learn how to talk to the opposite sex, learn public speaking, learn how to cook. Most importantly, make contacts as skills alone are not sufficient to find a job. Contacts will increase the probability of getting the opportunity to prove your worth.

Get your basics right

Eat nutritious food, fix your sleeping schedule and make it a habit of exercising at least 5 times a week. Just like a good foundation is necessary to support a structure, these habits will form a foundation for a good life. Just follow the above mentioned things and more than half of your problems will disappear.

 Be a well-rounded person

Yes, grades are important but it is equally important to have an overview about the world around you. Eventually these are the things which will help you to develop your personality and would be useful to you in ways you never imagined.

 Read as much as possible

Make it a habit to read books daily. Read about anything that interests you. Doesn't matter how much you read but make sure to read daily. It would teach you to think critically and open the doors to endless ideas that can change your life for the better.

Give a damn about your mental health and speak up when required

Have at least one friend in your life with whom you can share your deepest pains without any shame. Keeping everything to yourself would eat you alive. Don't be so hard on yourself always. Just because you fail sometimes doesn't mean that you haven't done your best. You are doing enough, remember it.

Don’t be afraid to piss people off

If you want to do something but are afraid to do so just because someone would not like it, then do it anyway. Because no matter what you do, there will always be people who would criticize you or wouldn’t be happy with what you did. Don’t be afraid to disappoint people when it comes you. You are under no obligation to make everyone happy. Remember you live for yourself, not for others. Once you become okay with pissing people off (when it is really needed), your life becomes way simpler.

 Learn how to be confident

Confidence is one of the must have quality in life. If you are having difficulty in developing confidence, at least learn how to fake it. Having a confidence can make you immensely attractive. Remember that having confidence can make up for many things you don't possess.

 Learn how to be happy

If you have money, fame, success but you're not happy, you've failed at life but if you're able to keep yourself happy in any situation, you've won. Failures and success are part of life which will teach you something every time but understand that there is no point of life. Ultimately it’s only the experiences that count. When you will be lying on your deathbed, you wouldn’t remember how many times you succeeded or failed but you would only remember experiences you have had, risks you had taken and adventures you did with your friends. All of our existence is a result of a mistake so don't try to find logic in everything. The only purpose of life is to be happy.

 Stop comparing yourself with others

Everyone has different stories. Don't use someone else's scale to measure your line. Nobody knows what you've gone through. If someone doesn't understand that and judges you wrongly, it's not your fault. Just remember that if you manage to do the best with whatever you have, you've succeeded regardless of what other people think.

 

Don’t be a part of a rat-race

When you graduate, some of your friends would be making more money than you, some would be making less and some would even struggle to find a job. Don’t feel inferior or superior. Just focus on your journey. You are not here to win any race. There will always be people who would have more intelligence, more money, more privilege than you. Don't feel sad for not having all of these as it's not in your hand. Make the best of what you’ve got.

 

Become financially literate

I can’t stress this enough. One of the best decision you can make in your 20s is to become financially literate. The most important thing you have going with you in your 20s is your age. Since you don’t have major obligations and responsibilities in this age, you can take risk. Start learning about mutual funds, stock market, compound interest and start investing. The earlier, the better. 

 

Fail earlier, fail often

We are taught from schools to not fail and that failing is a bad thing. I had read somewhere that ‘Fail early and fail often’ and I completely agree with that. In order to become wise, you need experience and that only comes from failing. Don’t worry about failing often, you only have to succeed once. People won’t remember your failures, they would remember your victories. 

Even when you screw up sometimes, you have time to recover from it as you are young. On the other hand, by not doing anything at all due to fear of failure, you will miss countless opportunities. Just keep failing but make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Keep learning from each mistake and improvise with each successive step and your progress would skyrocket.

Don't worry, you will get your dream job, you will find your passion and you will also fail sometimes. That's life. Don't worry unnecessarily. Just do what is required and enjoy the process, the rest would fall into place. Remember you are here to live and make memories, not to keep score of your wins-losses.

બસ સ્ટેશન

હોળી આ વખતે શુક્રવારે હોઇ ૩ દિવસ ની રજા નો મસ્ત મેળ પડેલો. મારી નોકરી બરોડા એટલે ગુરુવારે કામ પતાવીને સાંજે નીકળ્યો ગાંધીનગર ઘરે જવા. ઓફિસ થી બસ સ્ટેશન અડધા - પોણા કલાક નો રસ્તો ખરો અને બસ નો ટાઈમ હતો સાડા છ નો એટલે સાડા પાંચ વાગે નીકળેલો. સદનસીબે બહાર નીકળ્યાં ની પાંચ મિનીટ માં જ ડાયરેક્ટ સ્ટેશન ની રિક્ષા મળી ગઈ, એ પણ બે જણ વચ્ચે એટલે ટાઈમ એ પહોંચવાની અને થોડું ઘણું ભાડું બચવાની બેવડી ખુશી હતી. 

સ્ટેશન એ ધાર્યા મુજબ સવા છ એ પહોંચ્યો. બરોડા થી રાણીપ(અમદાવાદ) સુધી ની વોલ્વો ની ટિકીટ ઓનલાઇન  બુક કરાવેલી એટલે ચિંતા નહોતી. બરોડા થી અમદાવાદ બે - અઢી કલાક અને ત્યાં થી ગાંધીનગર નો બીજો અધડો - પોણો કલાક ના હિસાબે પોણા દસ વાગ્યા સુધી માં ઘરે પહોંચવાની ગણતરી હતી. સ્ટેશન એ પહોંચતા જ બસ પણ જાણે રાહ જોઈ ને ઉભી હતી. ટાઈમ થતાં જ બસ ઉપડી. 

થોડી વાર પછી કંટાળો આવવા લાગ્યો અને થાક ના કારણે માથું દુઃખતું હોઈ મોબાઈલ વાપરવાની ઈચ્છા પણ નહોતી. છેવટે  પાછળ ની સીટ એ બેઠેલા બહેનની એમના પતિ જોડે ફોન ઉપરની ઉગ્ર દલીલો અનિચ્છા એ પણ સાંભળવી પડી. આમ તો મને કોઈ ની વાતો સાંભળવાની ટેવ નહિ પણ સંજોગવશાત બહેન ના પતિ નું નામ પણ અક્ષય હતું અને હું કંટાળેલો એટલે મને પણ કુતૂહલ જાગ્યું. બસ માં બેઠા ના લગભગ કલાક પછી એમનો ઝઘડો ચાલુ થયેલો અને સિટીએમ આવતા આવતા મને એટલું તો સમજાઈ ગયેલું કે ઝગડો કઈ વાત ને લઇ ને હતો. વચ્ચે મેં બહેન ને એવું બોલતા સાંભળ્યા કે "મને તો બોલવા દે!". મને નવાઇ એ વાત ની લાગેલી કે મને યાદ છે ત્યાં સુધી ૯૦% ટાઈમ બહેન જ વાત કરતા હતા. બહેન સીટીએમ એ ઉતરી ગયા. હવે બાકીનો સમય પસાર કેવી રીતે કરવો એ વિચારવાનું હતું. સિટીએમ થી રાણીપ પહોંચતા આમ તો ચાલીસ મિનીટ જેવું જ થાય પણ હોળી ના હિસાબે ટ્રાફિક હોઇ કલાક લાગી ગયો. જો કે રસ્તા માં પાંચ - છ જગ્યાઓ હોળી જોવાનો લહાવો પણ મળ્યો! 

છેવટે સવા નવ વાગ્યા ની આસપાસ હું રાણીપ ઉતર્યો. આશા હતી કે થોડો "વહેલો" હોઇ ગાંધીનગર ની બસ જલ્દી જ મળી જવી જોઈએ પણ નિયતિ ની કંઇક બીજી જ ઈચ્છા હતી. પંદર મિનીટ રાહ જોવા છતાં એક પણ બસ નજરે ના આવતા એક દુકાનવાળા ને પૂછવા ગયો. ત્યાં થી જાણવા મળ્યું કે હજુ વાર લાગે એમ હતી. માથું તો દુ:ખાવાનું ચાલુ જ હતું એવા માં દુકાને ચા દેખાતા એક ચા પ્રેમી તરીકે સ્વાભાવિક રીતે જ આદુ વાળી કડક ચા પીવાના કોડ જાગ્યા. પણ પાછું ઘરે જઈ ને જમવાનું હોઇ ચા નો પ્લાન ઈચ્છા હોવા છતાં કેન્સલ રાખવો પડ્યો. 

છેવટે પોણા કલાક સુધી રાહ જોયા પછી બસ આવી! પણ તહેવાર ના હિસાબે અંદર ભીડ એટલી હતી કે ઉભુ રહેવાની જગ્યા પણ માંડ દેખાઈ. હાથ માં ૨ બેગ (એક માં પાછું લેપટોપ) હોવાના લીધે બેસવું કે નઈ એની અવઢવ માં હતો પણ મોડું થઈ ગયું હતું અને બીજી બસ ના કોઈ અણસાર દેખાતા નહોતા એટલે "અંદર જઈ ને જોયું જવાશે" ના નિર્ધાર સાથે બસ માં ચઢ્યો. મારા કરતા મને લેપટોપ ની બેગ ક્યાં મૂકવી એની ચિંતા વધારે હતી. છેવટે રેક ઉપર પણ ખાલી જગ્યા ન દેખાતા મારા પગ ની આગળ જ બેગ મૂકી. બીજી બેગ કંડકટર ની સીટ ઉપર મૂકવાની વિનંતી કરી. કંડકટર ભલો માણસ હતો, સંમત થયો. ધક્કા ખાતા ખાતા પણ અંતે દસ ની જાગ્યા એ સાડા દસ વાગે ગાંધીનગર પહોંચ્યો. થાક તો લાગેલો જ હતો પણ કહે છે ને કે "ધરતી નો છેડો ઘર". ઘરે પગ મૂકતા જ જાણે બધો જ થાક ઉતરી ગયો. ઘર માં પ્રવેશતા જ મે રસોડા તરફ દોટ મૂકી, જ્યાં મમ્મી ના હાથ નું ખાવાનું મારી રાહ જોઈ રહ્યું હતું. મુસાફરી એ થકવી નાખેલો પણ પહેલો કોળિયો મોઢા માં જતાં જ લાગ્યું કે દુનિયા ની નિયમ છે કે કંઇક મળવાની કિંમત ત્યારે જ સમજાય જ્યારે એ મળતા પહેલા કંઇક અડચણ આવે.