Ever felt like hanging by the threads? They are not strong enough to kill you and not weak enough to snap and let you on ground. Ok, sorry to have sounded metaphorically heavy but it was just the thought that popped up. For most of us life keeps throwing situations where we feel exactly like this. It is a constant quest to chase that dream. To make it big in life, to have that brand attached to you. There is a sea of people running for something or the other. Where is the respite? Where everybody in general stands? Where somebody ordinary and average makes the cut? As much as the world may talk about people and potential, but in reality, it’s all black and white. One page of paper called resume is what you are worth of. You might be a psychopath devoid of any considerate traits, but if you have brands like IIT or big corporate names attached to you, you are the man. Rest just don’t make the cut. Recently I heard a speech from the student speaker graduating at Birmingham University. As hilarious as it was, it was inspiring and gave a food for thought. He said “in today’s world of sea of excellent performers and out of box thinkers, average is the new exception. The average, who sees grades as a threat rather than opportunity”. This is so true for the world today. And thanks to the Usain Bolt’s and the supersonic’s of the class I am the average exception. The average, who takes life as a stroll rather than a frantic panting race where you can’t even enjoy at the end, because you can hardly breathe. I know some would call me sour grapes kind of thing but I am coming to the point. Obviously, making it to the Goldman Sachs, the Microsofts and the Lehmans of yore exemplify nothing less than the peak of professional success and it is making it big in every sense of the word. But is that all about it. There are many who don’t, or I might say, have a lesser chance of making it that way. Does life only means one A4 sheet of resume? I know everyone is amazing in one’s own way, but the world doesn’t judge like that. And that is when the exception average feels like hanging by the threads. Many things arise out of it. Personal, relationships, identity problems and what not in most of the cases can be traced back to how awesome on paper someone is. Is that all to living?
In this world a 90% acad record in a pool of 95%, or a mid 98 percentiler in an ocean of late 99 percentilers without a brand behind his back to scream on his resume, has relatively little to say. In fact, he must be prepared to listen a lot, not just from the outside world but also from people who are important in deciding his personal future happiness.
But as I try to snap out of these threads in an attempt to either get choked or to go scot free, I see life is much bigger. You don’t need to kill mammoths to make it big. God created simple little things for all of us to make our life count, to make it big.
Hug a dear friend in need, bring a smile to a sad face, promise someone special that you won’t let tears come in their eyes, promise yourself never to give up. The day when any one of your close ones say to you that no one could have done more for them than what you do or did, when your friends proudly say to others that they know a gem of a person in you, that is the moment when it becomes larger than life.
The threads will snap, just wait and endure and never stop doing what really reflects who you actually are. And then, you live big.