It’s the age of fast cars, 2 minute noodles, instant coffee and T20 cricket. Unfortunately in this fast paced world our expectations from life have also become fast paced. Our life is the sum of all our success and failures. Yet we often try to sum up all our life based on our day to day successes and failures. Every minute of every day we are searching for a new conquest a new victory a new success and when we fail in that search it seems as if our whole life is falling apart. I still remember that day in my life when it seemed as if the whole universe was conspiring against me. I was in seventh grade then and I had practiced hard all year to get selected in my school table tennis team. Unfortunately, I got slated against the number 1 seed and lost in the first selection round itself. I still vividly remember that dark evening when my whole life seemed to have lost meaning as I sat in front of an idol and kept asking “Why me?”. Next year I practiced harder and got selected in my school table tennis team, and blew it up right away (but that story is for another blog). In the grand scheme of my life the failure and success of being selected in my school table tennis team was inconsequential and yet in those two years the desire to be on my school table tennis team had engulfed my whole life.
What seems like the ultimate goal during a particular phase in our life is often just a small marker. And many times we put so much emphasis on our goals that we forget to enjoy our journey. For me the joy of playing table tennis got buried under the expectation of getting selected in the school team. Eventually table tennis became a chore for me and I quit playing after 8th grade. I rediscovered that joy again in graduate school when I used to get my behind kicked by friends from China for whom table tennis was not even a sport but just a way to kill time. And for me table tennis was fun again, it was not about winning or loosing or proving a point, it was just about enjoying the game.
My goals in life have changed but my passion of going after my goals is still the same and hence, failures are often as spectacular as those in 7th grade. But table tennis has taught me one valuable lesson. “Do try to reach your goals but make sure that you enjoy getting there because goals keep changing all the time but the journey happens just once in a life time.
What seems like the ultimate goal during a particular phase in our life is often just a small marker. And many times we put so much emphasis on our goals that we forget to enjoy our journey. For me the joy of playing table tennis got buried under the expectation of getting selected in the school team. Eventually table tennis became a chore for me and I quit playing after 8th grade. I rediscovered that joy again in graduate school when I used to get my behind kicked by friends from China for whom table tennis was not even a sport but just a way to kill time. And for me table tennis was fun again, it was not about winning or loosing or proving a point, it was just about enjoying the game.
My goals in life have changed but my passion of going after my goals is still the same and hence, failures are often as spectacular as those in 7th grade. But table tennis has taught me one valuable lesson. “Do try to reach your goals but make sure that you enjoy getting there because goals keep changing all the time but the journey happens just once in a life time.
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