Real Strength is something that comes handy in difficult times . This is not just a quote from google.This is Life distilled in few words.

Wisdom as they call it takes years to dawn on most of us , unless we are God’s own child. Intelligence is often correlated with future success this is not entirely wrong but our experiences are full of facts contrary to this. We are somewhere in the dark about this matter and it seems reasonable to assume this as our entire education system banks too much on the number and CGPA game.

This trend of many years of acquiring the numbers , grades silently create a unique self image in our minds that reflects in our expectations out of life and it also influences our chances of social approval. India is not untouched of this.If you have been an ace scorer in your life and a degree from a reputed college, you somehow start feeling life is a cake walk.

Back benchers on the other hand have a uphill ride mostly,reason is obvious as they have to prove in the system that they too can swim well , no matter if they were birds and were meant to fly only ! That’s why I chose to speak out Strength.

While preparing for an interview sometime in august 2007 , I was thinking about my own strengths and weakness and it so happened that I got a strange insight that Strength and Weaknesses are actually relative and are differences only of degrees not of kinds. This is kind of tough to digest, and I am not trying to push this pill down your throat. Lets look at this little closer.

What are STRENGTHS ?

As per my understanding this is just one trait or behavior pattern in you which is dominant and is generally perceived as “Good” by the society. So lets say I am a ACHIEVER ! Which boils down to following things if I am working

• I come late from work.
• I get B or C class employees as my reportee!
• I get to travel a lot.
• I get a fat paycheck.
• After 40 I will visit doctors for ulcers , high BP and perhaps cervical problems.
• I miss family functions.
• I pay heavy EMI for cars and home.

Now this one trait may give you laurels at work it wont make you a complete man like famous Raymond commercial.Trust me your wife wont like it.

So is this a Strength ? Perhaps the answer lies in which frame of reference we are evaluating a set of behavior pattern. Now life is not like black and white and I have yet to meet a man who can clearly divide the proverbial “Work-Life balance”. Life is in continuation and it can’t be like day and night. So is there any crossover in our traits or they are always situation and place specific?

I have searched the top qualities of most rich, successful people. Some say they do what they Love , infact most of them have talked about being persistent, never say die, Optimistic, perseverance etc etc.

Now the big question is how can you have any of this if you hate it. No one likes the wet sock and imagine if I tell you that in order to  succeed you need to put on wet T shirt and Wet Socks and you will win!  You will kick me where it hurts most.

some how intuition of these successful people knows what they are good at and not all of us are …. so tuned to our core inner self and therefore we keep on trying to search for country songs in giant spectrum of noise (read right job, career ). So it leads to one point where we all meet and that’s called Confusion. We drag ourselves to those classes where we feel like aliens and we drag our self to those rooms with Venetian blinds where you meet with the guy whom you don’t like. I read the book “The Secret”. No matter how hard I tried to attract the good life it just didn’t come a meek voice inside my head always said dude you are asking for right thing but your way is not right.

What’s the Right way to find the Strength?

Alright so it was written in every single book I have read since my childhood that hardwork yields success.Life is not about being a slave.Its about being a king. Most of our thinking is somehow so constructed that we take pleasure in sweating and kind of punishing ourselves.Working hard on something . We miss the point here. What if you learn to love a thing or better you find a thing you love.

Love is strength in disguise. There are many social workers out there,but there was only one Mother Teresa. There are many saints in India but there was only one Vivekananda. The answer remains in the fact they did what they loved. Finding love is easy at least now , we are not talking about match making here.

There was a study done long back that talks about how our brain is geared to naturally appreciate some aspects of life better than most of the other people and what comes naturally to us is what is our strength. Not everyone can be an engineer or entrepreneur . But if an artist by nature wants to be an engineer its like a crossover between man and chimp. This new being is not going to be happy ever as there is no such thing as half man or half chimp.

Unfortunately we have produced enough of such specimens around the world.The biggest problem of 21st Century is lack of real professionals we have lot of guilt ridden and compromised people who are going to offices where they never wanted to be and hence are not happy this is reflecting in our life both online and offline.

Whats the solution?

There are ways to find out what works in this small life. Its critical we start working towards self discovery and not follow the rat race. Even if you win the rat race you are still a mice. Stay tuned  for my next blog about the solution. Trust me , It will be worth your time.

Thanks for reading this FAR.

RisingAbhi