What doesn’t kill you, only makes you better

You wake up one fine morning, not knowing what date it is, not knowing when you slept, not knowing what day it is, and have a general feeling of being confused. And then you ask yourself, what is it that woke you up, and what is it that you need to do. And then you curse….yourself, others around you, and people and surroundings in general.

You have a few submissions to make, and you have a few quizzes to crack, and then there are a few pending things (actually many a pending) that have been begging your attention for quite a while. Your near and dear ones haven’t heard from you since ages, your feelings in general towards all your friends is that off indifference, and that you are at your wits end to make it on time to the class room. And Oh! You have not had your break-fast yet.

All the while you believe that an external force has been unhappy with you. That why at all times you are in the eye of the storm. Why can’t you just close your eyes, and have a nap.. without ever giving a thought to what the world will end up like.

You believe in the fact that your destiny is playing around with you, that your very existence is being mauled with what things are in store for you. Oh look at you, once a great singer, a great dancer, a great painter.. oh look at you, reduced to nothing but a book worm. “When was the last time you did something for the first time, and that made you happy…” you think. Generally there are no answers… you thought you had a talent and you were good at something, but you just don’t remember what it was. Not anymore.

You find people, some janus faced, some innocent, some cunning, and some that you can’t categorise. You find yourself behave in a manner you couldn't have imagined. You fail in a quiz or two, get a zero for the first time (this first time thing, does not make you happy.) You blame it on your inability, you blame it all on to yourself, without thinking a dime about what is it that saw you come to place with some of the smartest people around.

And that’s where the inspiration begins…

You find engineers score more in accounts than CA’s

You find commerce students score more in IT than software pros

You find absolutely tongue tied and shy people, chart out excellent poetry

You find actors, where none were expected

You find singers who you never had thought had a voice

They all did it… and so could you…. And then you think about yourself. You look in the image, and search within your soul, and try to find what is it that you are good at. There's no answer. You ask yourself again, thinking that there has to be something special about me, this time its real hard (almost approaching a tear in the eye for some).., and then it clicks…. You learn a lesson.. Life is not about fretting your weakness, its about building upon your strengths..

This in short what an MBA has been.. precisely saying nothing more than a laboratory of mixed emotions, that prong one to self discovery.. that led one to a better understanding of ones own self.. thank these challenging 80 days of your MBA life, you are a tougher, stronger and a more mature person... moral of the story.. what doesn’t kill you, only makes you better.

Gunjan Bothra

PGDM Batch of 2010 (Finance)

S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai