Learning Forever

In a poignant scene from the movie Dangal, Mahavir Phogat tells his daughter to not forget how she reached where she had. That’s a very important lesson in life – one which we are all aware of, but probably do not follow as well. As I get ready to welcome the new year, I look back at all these years and there are the obvious pivotal moments of life – for example, moving to DPS, topping the boards, getting the Rhodes. But those set of ‘achievements’ masks the numerous ‘actions’ that led to them, that have shaped me as a person. I remember that when I was putting in the 13-hour study days back in middle school, I was always thinking that I wasn’t focussing enough on the foundations. I realise that I invested in several actions which didn’t have immediate payoffs, but have increased the probability of success now.

The most important, perhaps, is reading the newspaper for an hour every day. At first, it was a chore that I forced myself to perform. But very soon, it became something that I looked forward to. It has helped me increase my knowledge of the world around me. Is that knowledge useful? Perhaps. It certainly helps me build credibility when I am talking to people. In my opinion, it is one thing to be a subject matter expert and another to know a lot of different things. I tend to find the latter more engaging and interesting.

The second, surprisingly, would be health. For over ten years now, my body’s inherent weaknesses have been obvious to me and hence I have been trying very hard to improve my health. From waking up at six to go swimming to running through Christ Church meadows in the biting cold. Of course, when I moved to the UK, I realised that there was nothing unique in the effort that I put in. Yet, I do believe that compared to people around whom I grew up and my own past self, I was putting in a lot of effort. In the last year or so, the effort has intensified further with the entry into the gym. Hopefully, I will be able to race ahead of my body’s natural degenerative tendencies soon!

The third has been, boringly, hard work. What I mean is that I often participated in things without thinking too much about whether it made a ton of sense. Every experience is enriching and the more the experiences, the more enriching life becomes. I remember the one time when I heard about peers in school participating in a TV show on NDTV Metro Nation where over a dozen kids discussed issues. I swallowed my shyness and approached teachers who had never taught me and got myself to one of those shows. A few months down the line, having participated in a few more such shows, I found myself hosting a 10 – minute segment on the show all by myself. What a unique experience!

The fourth and perhaps the most important one is sacrifice. It has often been quite senseless and doesn’t always make sense to me. To put yourself out there (like I do when writing this blog) and to take a bit of the burden off others’ back and on to yourself is a high-risk proposition. Of course, I do it not expecting any reward or reciprocity. But I now see that it has helped me develop deep relations with people around me.

To be honest, I am getting complacent in life and forgetting many of these things that have helped me reach an economically secure position in life. For example, I think I have now become far more self-centred than I have ever been before. While change is a natural process and I do not want to unnecessarily resist it, I also want to create enough evidence that these activities and values are not required anymore. I see my life as an experiment and I want to extract as much learning as I can. To quite Mahavir Phogat from the movie, the first battle is with fear. Once fear has been conquered, the main battle is only of secondary importance.