Lost in nostalgia, Lakshya was remembering the time when he was nothing but confused. Confused of what he is doing with his life, where he is and confused of where he belongs. Confused about what has been done and what he should do further. Days spent in misery, and the nights were sleepless. Couldn’t he decide how and where he should start to look for the answers of his questions. Questions that one can never skip in the examination of life. Questions that become the ultimate reason of motivation or avolition for young adults. Questions that would determine one’s future. Sipping a cup of tea on a quiet yet calm evening, legs resting on the railings of his balcony, Lakshya was sitting on an armchair seeing the sun going down and becoming little to dark orange in a matter of minutes.
While searching for his new sneakers before hitting the road for an evening walk, he saw an old and rusty box of colours. Now all he could think, on his way to the elevator, is the last time he had drawn something. Which was seven years ago, the same time when all he was doing day and night was searching, discovering, finding the skill that he can do well and that he can enjoy too. He always wanted to draw but never got appreciated by others because he couldn’t ‘draw well’. Nonetheless, he tried anyway. He drew everything that he could see around him. Including his study table and chair, his living room, the seller throwing newspapers around homes, the traffic that he could see outside of his window, the blooming flowers and trees when it rains, and so on. With the hope of appreciation and admiration, Lakshya showed his drawing with his shiny eyes looking up to his friends and waiting for a great reaction.
“What is this?!”, his friends giggled, then started laughing after a couple seconds. They couldn’t even recognize his drawing, they just found something funny to laugh at him. Faking a smile, while devastated by the contradicting reaction he received, he took the sheets back and returned without uttering a single word. Totally heartbroken, Lakshya sat quietly looking at the sky outside the window. Blaming himself for going and making fun of himself. This was a big failure for Lakshya, as after gathering so much courage to do something totally new, he ended up losing all hope about everything.
As soon as Lakshya returned from the walk, he sat down on the chair holding a pencil and a blank sheet on the table. He drew something. Not a table and chair, not a seller, neither trees nor birds. What he drew was two graphs of the mathematical functions known as Sine and Cosine. Its graph is like a wave. It goes to and fro about one axis.
“What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? What work gives you a sense of satisfaction and belonging? What excites you the most? What can you do everyday and every hour without getting bored? What do you think the world needs from you? What do you think you can offer to the world? How can you make this world a better place? What are the skills you have, or skills you always wanted to pursue?” Just after completing his secondary schooling, Lakshya has started finding answers to these questions. Same question mentioned earlier.
After his big failure with drawing, which was the lower part of the graph, he started writing short stories in his rough notebook. Not to become a writer but to put all the feelings that he felt, the happiness, sorrow, pleasure and misery into words and fictional characters. He used to treat emotions as leading persons in his short but beautiful stories. It was just a matter of time when he got so involved in imagining and creating that one can find stories written on the back of every notebook he owned. He started his day by writing about the calm and quietness of a morning in the forest rather than the chaos and noise of a morning in a big city, and ended the day by writing the love story about the twinkling of stars and luminousness of the moon.
Just like the graph of a Sine or Cosine function, when life’s slope goes down it does stop going down at a certain point. The depth of the valley determines the height of the hill that will rise after. The bigger the loss the bigger the urge for success and the bigger the satisfaction after getting at the top. One can never stay at the valley, the only way forward is up. Similarly, one can never get stuck at a failure, unless he/she chooses to. Life is not like a chess board, where someone can either choose the white, success, or the black, failure. Life is in greys. Mixture of both.
Difference between the graph of a Sine and a Cosine is when the graph of a Sine function is at the top, the graph of the Cosine function is at the bottom. And it moves forward like two snakes cuddling around. When the Cosine is at the bottom it shows the failure one has got, and at the same time Sine shows the point where the level of happiness, satisfaction and sense of pride will be once he goes forward and works for the coming success. Look back at your life today and observe how many small success and small failures has led you to this day and as a person you are.
Less broadly speaking, there are lots of times in a single day when these graphs move and make multiple curves. Meaning if one does any work in a day faces some obstacle and some problems, that time the curve is going down. Without stopping, if one continues to face that obstacle and come over a solution to the problem, the curve will simultaneously go up. Main point is that while achieving a goal, big or small, learning a skill or setting up time on the wall clock, the curve will inevitably rise if it goes down at all. Only knowing this fact that no barrier can stop from achieving a goal increases the chances of overcoming it. I should mention one famous slang, our heart is an idiot, if you found yourself in a problematic situation and it looks scary, just put your hand on your heart and say “All Is Well”. It will not solve the problem but gives you the courage to face it. You guessed it right, it is from the movie 3 Idiots. I guess the movie makers pointed their ‘hearts’ while naming the movie! xD
Lakshya realised this today after he recalled some facts from the past. All his failures and success resulting in the person he today is. As Steve Jobs mentioned in his Stanford Commencement Speech in 2005 about connecting the dots while looking backwards. You can always connect the dots while looking backwards. What you can do while looking forward is believe the fact that whatever happens, whatever failure occurs, whatever setback puts you down, one day the dots will connect and maybe some dots of some people will make a drawing not of a table or chair, not of a seller, neither of birds nor trees, it will be a graph of Sine and Cosine moving in harmony. ;)
Gr8 bro
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