Writing, Among Other Things

Category: Success (Page 8 of 9)

Finish What You Start!

“Well begun is half done,” Aristotle said. And Aristotle, as we all know, was a very smart man. This quote by Aristotle, however, presents only one part of the picture, and the picture is quite incomplete without the other half, which is as important as the first half. This other half can be summarised with Shakespeare’s line, “All’s well that ends well”.

In my discussions with friends and peers, I often come across instances where someone starts writing something, and then, somewhere in the middle, they lose interest and give up. I myself have done that many times. An idea strikes me. I sit down on my computer in right earnest, and then, half way through, I feel that the idea was not as exciting as it initially seemed. I lose all interest in completing what I had started, and the piece remains unfinished forever.

Does that ever happen to you?

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What was that again?

Once, many years ago, I was walking down a road, when a hand suddenly came to rest upon my shoulder. I jumped in surprise, and turned to see a man looking down at me. He was staring at somewhere around my waist. The word “PERVERT” immediately formed itself in my mind, but before I could react, the man said, “Wow, your wrists, you must play cricket?”

“Ummmm, Yes, a little!” I said. Everyone in India plays a little cricket.

“You must be a batsman,” he continued. Now, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered. “I have not seen wrists like yours… they are almost like Sachin Tendulkar’s, or Brian Lara’s,” he finished. If you don’t know who those two are, suffice it to say that they are the best of the best in the game of  Cricket. I was flattered earlier, but I think the English language does not have a word to describe what I felt now. We talked for a little bit more, and then we parted ways.

Till this day, I sometimes feel, that I made a wrong career choice. Maybe I was born to be a cricketer.

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What is Your Profession?

300 is a nice movie. Admittedly, the movie is mostly blood, gore, screams and half naked men with great abs, yet it is a great movie. The quality of the movie, however, is not what this post is about. This post is about something I realised as I was watching the movie.

In one scene, King Leonidas, and his 300 men, meet a group of Arcadians, led by Daxos. Daxos is dismayed at seeing only 300 men, and he tells Leonidas that he was expecting the number of Spartans to be at least as much as the Arcadians. At that Leonidas asks three Arcadians what their profession was, and the answers he gets are potter, sculptor, and blacksmith respectively.

Spartans, of course, were soldiers by profession, each and every one of them. That was exactly what made Spartans a formidable fighting force.

The lesson to be learnt here is simple.

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Sometimes, it’s not about the Road!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference”

All of us at some point of time or another in our lives come to a point where we stand at crossroads. Roads lie in front of us, and we have to chose one of them. Unlike the poet, Robert Frost, who chose the one less travelled by, most of us chose the one that is well travelled, and that, as they say, makes all the difference.

But it is not always about the road. Sometimes, it does not matter what road you take.

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Searching for that One Thing!

All our lives, most of us, are searching for that one secret that would take us from where we are now to where we want to be. This search leads us onto many paths – known and unknown – but most of these paths lead nowhere.

We read books, we listen to speeches, we watch videos, and every time we find something great and inspiring, we think this is it. We believe we have found the secret to success. In a few days, however, the illusion fades. We are still standing where we were, or maybe in a new place, but our destination is still hidden behind dense fog.

Do we fail because we are less capable than others? Or do we fail because we are not as enthusiastic as others?

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