Category: Attitude/Discipline

Child in us


“Child is the father of man” or so goes the saying.  Most of us will recall that the best years of our lives were when we were kids.  We did what our heart wanted without worrying about what others thought about it.  As we grow up, we tend to live for others.  We act the way others want us to do.  We have lost the child in us and this is indeed very sad.

We find it difficult to laugh or cry every day when we feel like doing. Smile replaces laughter because we start believing that the world will laugh at us if we are too loud.  In situations where we feel like crying, we hide our emotions since we are conditioned to believe that adults do not cry.  If you cry, you are kid and have not grown up.  This leads to our conditioned behaviour.  It is almost like the air conditioned environment that we are used to in our offices and homes today and we have forgotten the heat of the summer, the gush of the rains or the chillness of the winter.

I sometimes wonder how beautiful life would be if we can continue to be our natural selves.  Imagine dancing in the rains and getting wet at the onset of monsoon.  It would be fun to sit on the sea shore and play with sea shells in the sand.  I remember enjoying raw cut mangoes on the beach with family and friends during vacations.  The joy of travelling by train with family on a long summer holiday appears a bygone era.

Who do we blame for losing the child in us ?  We can conveniently blame our education system.  We can blame our parents and elders for not allowing us to enjoy life as a kid and forcing us to behave like adults even before we grew into one.  But, I would blame myself more than anyone else.  Nothing stops me to sit and cry if I feel like doing so even today as an adult.  There is nothing which stops me at laughing at myself and jumping in joy.

We have become less adaptable to the environment around us.  We find it difficult to cope with situations of joy or sorrow and hence want to be behave like conditioned beings.  It is easier for us to hide our emotions than to express it.  We are guarded in our behaviour at home, work and in the community.  The day we learn to be our natural selves, we may be able to rejuvenate the child in us.

It is time to laugh and cry when we feel like.  It is time to express ourselves with everyone around us the way we feel like.  Let us rekindle the kid in us.  The best outcome of this change will be our ability to bounce back from the troughs in our life.  We will also be able to deal with crests with equanimity.  We can see children bounce back from sorrow even before we realise it.  We also see children sharing their joy with others and not riding on a sense of pride always.

It’s time to bring back the child in us as in the photo above.

The time to start is now and the day to start is today.  It does not matter how old or young you are.  Our physical age is just a number.  We need to live life as if a tomorrow does not exist.  We need to learn to enjoy life and share our joy with others.  There is no better way to do it than the way children do it.  It is time to learn and it is time to learn from the kids around us.

Let us regenerate the child in us from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

We win some and lose some…


We win some and lose some.  Life is a zero sum game.  Today we had three international games in which India played.  The first was when an Indian won the Indonesian open badminton final.  The second was a hockey match where India defeated its sub continental counterpart with style.  In the third match, India lost to the better team of the day in the champions trophy cricket final.  The whole nation forgot about the spectacular victories in badminton and hockey and was cursing the Indian cricket team for its loss.

The lesson I learnt today is our ability to accept loss in a game with grace.  We cannot win every game in our life and there are days we may win and other days we may lose.  We need to learn to accept victory with humility and loss with grace.  I do accept that we are a cricket loving nation and this sport has almost become a religion in India.  It brings together the whole nation and stirs emotions. But to swing to extremes of emotions on winning or losing a game may not be a good idea.

This phenomenon is true for life too.  We may win on many occasions and lose in some.  We need to learn to be humble in victories and reflective in defeat.  This is easier said than done.  We tend to get proud on being victorious in life.  If we continue to top the class or represent the school in a sport, it may go into our head.  We may get into the best school or college based on absolute merit.  We may then end up in the dream company of our choice.  All this should be accompanied by our feet firmly on the ground.  We need to learn to realise that victory could any day be followed by defeat.

On the other hand, when we fail in an exam or do not get admitted to a college of our choice, we almost give up in life.  Neither victory nor defeat is permanent in life.  The earlier we realise this, the more successful we may be in life.  In the cycle of life, victories and defeats are also cyclical.  God bestows us with the best of everything in life based on our hard work and commitment.  We taste success and the moment there is an aota of doubt that we have become proud because of our success, he gives us a taste of failure.

As the successes in life make us feel good and move forward, the failures in life should make us reflect, learn and bounce back.  We neither should climb a tree and announce to the world that we have arrived on achieving our first success, nor we need to regret our first defeat in life.  In my learning in life, failure teaches you more than success. Hence, the need to accept success and failiure in life with equal equanimity.

In my experience, success and failure in life is like the day and night.  We can neither expect the day light to last forever nor expect the night to be omnipresent.  Night begins when day ends only to give way to the next day.  Sun sets today to rise again tomorrow.  Just like the plants and animals learn to live with day and night, we as humans need to accept victories and defeats in life with equal respect.

As in the photo above, we can learn from a kid how to accept defeat gracefully when he is not able to climb a tree.

Every victory will make us proud and should do so.  Every defeat will teach us lessons, which in turn will make us victorious in the future.

Is it time to learn to accept defeat with grace ?

S Ramesh Shankar

Everyone has a bad day…


I was watching a reality music show on television for kids.  In my view, the best participant did not do well that day.  I felt it was ok.  After all, everyone has a bad day and so did this young boy.  It was a good lesson to learn.  Even the best have a bad day.  The only difference between the best and the rest is that they learn and bounce back fast.  We as normal mortals take our time to spring back to normal.

If we look back, it is true in every walk of life.  The best in the class may not top the class every single time and may slip once in a while.  The best in a game of soccer may not score every single time they play the game.  The best batsman in cricket may not score a century every time she or he walks into a match.  So, it is in life.  We may not have the best of time, all the time.  This does not mean, we do not give our best and put our best foot forward all the time.

The best sportsman always put in their best effort.  They are not rattled even if they don’t win a game or score a goal in a match.  They are willing to realise their mistakes and learn from them.  On the other hand, many of us tend to give up even before the game is over.  It is like the spectators in a match.  If their favourite team does badly in the first half, many of them leave the ground even before the match is over.  On the other hand, the players do not give up till the last whistle is blown.

I have seen in real life that champions never give up.  Whether it is in academics, sports or even at work, the best never rest.  They may fail once in a while.  After all, they are also human like all of us.  But their resilience is worth emulating.  They spring back many a time even before the match is over.  That is why many a time it is said in sports that form may be temporary but class is permanent.

Let us try to understand this from the prism of work.  The best performers may fail in a project.  But they are keen to learn from their mistakes and then excel in their very next project.  Many of us tend to get depressed and down and out after we fail in an assignment.  It takes courage to accept defeat and learn from it.  It is better to learn gracefully from defeat than to jump in arrogance after a victory.

It is interesting to note that failures teach you better lessons than success.  It is up to us to look back and reflect on our failures with an intent to learn from it.  We want to bury the past and race towards the future.  The lessons of the past may help us lay the foundation for the future.  It is up to us to learn from it and assimilate them in our life. If we do not learn from our past mistakes, the future errors may be graver and harder to correct.

Life gives us enough chances to err and learn.  It is up to us to realise that it is fine to fail once a while and learn from it.  In today’s competitive world, many of us including our parents, family and friends find it difficult to encourage us to experiment and fail.  The best leaders give you the space to try out new things.  They are not worrried about failure as they realise that these are the stepping stones to success.

As in the photo above, the best sculptors possibly fail a few times before they produce a thing of beauty for all of us to admire.

Let us look back to move forward.

S Ramesh Shankar