If
you feel, after reading the topic above, that this blog too, contains the same
old ideas almost everyone knows, then you should definitely scroll down to read
the difference.
This is the story of Shyam who is an
intellectual kid. His perspective towards everything was way different from
those around him. If someone would tell him that 2+2 is 4, he would not accept
it readily; he would try to understand why 2+2=4 is, very logical was his mind.
He would never accept everything, everyone would tell him as truth, and every
idea had to first pass his logical test to be accepted as truth, at least for
him.
He was a good student in school, but he
never realized this, in fact he was quite curious about the partiality which
was done to him, the use of mugging up the question and answers, the rude behavior of his teachers and much more.
He managed to score good marks because of
his intellectual mind. Luckily, his parents always loved him for what he was
and were happy with the marks that he scored. It was now time for very
important SSC exams and he kept receiving tips and ideas from his seniors,
colleagues & teachers about exam preparation, last day revision, time
management etc, but unfortunately none worked for him. The most important
advice given that time was Start with the most difficult chapter and the do the
easy chapters in the end. He followed this tip and almost on every exam, he
couldn’t complete his studies. He would write in his papers whatever he knew
and come home disappointed for not giving his best shot.
He followed the same advice of SSC until
his post-graduation. Although this advice helped him at times, his academic
graph was sometimes good and sometimes satisfactory. It was never the best.
At work he was told that the most efficient
way to work is by choosing the most difficult task on the list and then moving
on. He followed this, but he couldn’t complete his work on time with this
advice. Being intellectual and highly intuitive, something in him kept telling
him that this is not the most efficient way to work, but he would then ask
himself, why was everyone following this advice? Are they wrong? Am I wrong?
His confusions only increased.
In fact, in life too, he started taking the
difficult path first postponing the easiest path, he would think more on what
he couldn’t do than what he could, he would spend more time thinking on things
which were not working. One fine day, his career came to a standstill, so
depressed was he that he doubted if he is really capable of doing any good
work.
He decided to find out the cause of so many
failures that he was facing over so many years. He read many self help books
and most of them had difficult concepts; and different books had different ideas
only to add to his confusion and woes. But enough was enough, he turned away
from everything that was confusing him, instead he chose the ideas which he
felt were easy to understand and implement. He wanted his career & finances
to recover ASAP. He sat down and wrote all the solutions that came to his mind,
picked up the easiest one and started working on it, one easy solution led to
another easy solution and gradually he got a good job. At job, he came across
people with the old idea and many of his colleagues were
considered inefficient or were not able to complete their work on time. But
Shyam was determined to prove his mettle.
In his work list he chose the easiest
task first. He chose what he could do over what he couldn’t do. He chose the
ideas which were clear to him when certain assignments had confusing ideas.
He chose clarity over confusion,
He chose the easy over difficult
He started with what was possible
amidst the impossible
He chose easy people over
difficult one
He read books with easy concepts.
When he chose the easy things
first, he was able to do the most difficult task eventually.
When he chose the task that he
could do, he was even able to do the task that he couldn’t,
When he believed and implemented
the clear ideas, the confusing ones became gradually clear to him.
He never ran away from the
difficult tasks, the easy tasks gave him the confidence and energy to do the
most difficult task with ease.
He became known for his quality
and timely completion of work, calm and composed mind, intelligence, out of the
box ideas and many other traits. His life was far more organized and his
productivity at work only kept soaring.
Shyam’s favourite quotations are
“Like Attracts Like”
“Energy flows where attention
goes”
This story is not meant to contradict
anyone’s beliefs or ideas about time management but to share the inspiration I
received from Shyam’s story. What according to you is the moral of the story?