True Topper

I was dreaming to get first Rank in my school and always felt bad that I was not able to get it, I was nowhere even close to first rank, and I was disgusted. My dad always wanted me to score a distinction, 85% and above, but I was always stuck at 80% to 83% and could never cross that. So, even my dad was unhappy.

In my 9^th standard there was a science exhibition organized at my school, I was a part of the team which built a hydraulic power plant demo model and I took up the responsibility to explain the model to the audiences. I was very good at explaining things. My explanation was a blend of interest, passion and happiness. One of the audiences said, “You explained it very well, you must be the topper of the class! Correct?” I just gave a smile and started with the next audience. I was very happy; an unknown happiness was struck in my mind. I have a feeling that I found out something!

I could analyse and know the reason for my happiness; I found out that you need not be a topper only by securing first rank. You can be a topper in your attitude, you can be a topper in your behavior, you can be a topper in so many other things that you love to do and getting a first rank is only one of the ways to be a topper.

Enjoy your life and be a topper in whatever you love to do

-PrAm

Tenali’s Trick

I hope you would be familiar about the great poet during the reign of krishnadevaraya. Yes, he is none other than Thenali Raman who was also known as VIKATAKAVI. Do you know the speciality of this title? We can pronounce the same even if it is read from left to right (VI-KA-TA-KA-VI)!

Once a businessman was travelling on his cart, but he met with an accident and fell into a small stream of water. His horse died while struggling to pull the heavy cart out of the water stream.

The businessman was helpless with the dead horse and the stuck cart. He ran to a nearby house for help and fortunately met Thenali Raman there. The businessman explained his situation and cried for help. Thenali Raman asked the businessman to calm down and said he will help him move the cart. Raman thought for a while and said Shankara will be able to rescue the cart. The businessman was curious about who Shankara was. Thenali Raman showed his old horse named Shankara, but the businessman was not sure if Shankara could pull the cart out of water as the horse was very old.

However, Thenali Raman was very confident about his horse. Shankara was tied to the cart by Raman, the businessman was anxious! Raman suddenly started shouting pull Naga! Pull Soma! Pull Srinivasa! Pull Rama! Pull Shankara!

The businessman was confused with Raman’s act, but surprisingly Shankara had pulled the heavy cart out of the water stream. The businessman was very happy, he thanked Raman, kissed Shankara and curiously asked Raman that why did he shout so many names? Raman replied saying Shankara is old and blind as well, as long as he feels part of the team, he doesn’t mind pulling.

Confidence kills fear, will power is the source of strength

-Pram

Practical Perseverance

I was trying to assemble an electronic device which suddenly made me learn some mathematics!. I had learnt a formula to find the circumference of the circle in my school, however I never knew what it practically meant

I recently got a bicycle !!!! Yes, I smile whenever I speak about it.

I was wondering what can I gift myself which would be unique and make me feel happy, and then the first thing that came to my mind was buying a bicycle. I had this plan long back in my college days where I would dream about what to do in my first salary , finally it came true. This would be a best gift to me from me which I would remember and preserve, at least its memories for ever.

The electronic device which I was speaking about is my bicycle’s speedometer. This Saturday me and my cousin planned for a cycling trip to Bannerghatta National Park, hence I decided to first assemble the speedometer which I brought a week ago from Decathlon. Assembling this speedometer seemed to be very exciting stuff as I knew nothing about it .

The device had a good amount of documentation with illustrative pictures describing what exactly to be done. It has a magnet, sensor and a digital device which converts rotations per second to kms/hr or Miles/hr. After assembling the hardware on the bicycle, I just saw the next step in the installation guide to set the value of circumference of the wheel in order to make the device calculate the speed accurately. That was exciting I immediately took a tape, found the radius of the wheel and substituted it in (pi)r*r to get the circumference. However, I found another method in the installation guide which is more accurate. First rotate the wheel to make the air nozzle perpendicular to ground and mark that point on ground (Le this be A), then move the bicycle till the nozzle becomes perpendicular to the ground again, that would be a 360 degree rotation of the wheel and mark this point as well (Let this be B) on the ground. Now the distance between A and B is the circumference of the circle .

Ha ha, it was simple and exciting. Finally I understood what circumference exactly meant after about 10 years of learning it in my academics . A question kept popping up in my mind, How many students who successfully clear their exams and make their parents proud, practically know what they study. Being an Engineer, I had least practical knowledge about many things I learnt in my academics; however I could clear these exams with decent scores .

Just learning the formula and substituting values in it is an easy method to get an approximate answer and score well in the exam, but that sucks, there is least excitement in doing that. It’s actually insane and students still do that. The funniest part is, there are many schools which make the students sit and study for their SSLC exams even after the school hours . Learning should be exciting, if you make a student sit and study without letting him play or do things what he likes, he can only score marks and his analysis power would be the least. Scoring good marks is what parents, teachers and society expects in India which is making many real talents sink.

Excitement is a vital part of life which sinks when the pressures around are misunderstood.

Hope a change comes up.

We need a change in the mindsets, not in the methods.

Yours lovingly,
Pram

Captive Confidence

Self-Confidence is Captive and Challenge is the key to unlock it

I always loved the phrase “SELF CONFIDENCE”, the mere thought of this phrase would make me feel the heat in my brain and an urge to achieve something would be at its best. This urge to achieve would grow into a verge of getting into a dream which never became reality (I hope you have read my previous article “Dream in Depth”).

So, How do we convert this self confidence and urge to achieve into a well documented success?

A successful man is the one whose goals are achieved irrespective of them getting noticed by others. I mean to say, success of a person is decided by himself and a person can feel successful only when he can prove to his consciousnesses completely that he has sincerely completed the task taken up. Believe me, its relatively very easy to prove things to others than to our self.

A daydreamer always thinks of getting noticed and a capable man only concentrates on the goal to be achieved (I have experienced both the phases of a daydreamer and a capable man ). With respect to confidence, both the daydreamer and the capable man will be confident in their ventures, but success seldom comes to a daydreamer.

Well, when a daydreamer is confident, his intensions and dreams will be focusing only on the appreciation, where as when a capable man is confident, his focus will be completely on the work to be done, he never cares about the appreciation and he loves satisfaction.

So, what is real self confidence?

We might have seen many instances where a crazy man whom we thought was not capable of doing anything or not serious of what he does, suddenly becomes successful in a serious venture. For example, Mr.Steve Jobs. He was a college drop out, just did things what he loved to do and was respected only after his inception of Apple.

Steve Jobs loved what he did, he wanted his love to win. Since his love was true, he took it as a challenge that gave him the required self confidence and helped him drive his love to the warmth of success.

This even describes what true love is, isn’t it? ha ha

Anyways, self confidence is something which is present in enormous amount within everyone, but it is captive and locked up with a strong lock made up of aspects leading to the inception of a daydreamer within our self. To get the power of this captive self confidence, we need to have a key of challenge to unlock it and to handle that great energy of self confidence released through challenge, we got to have plenty of patience and perseverance.

Alright, just shared a couple of understandings from the experiences with my crazy brain, hope it din’t strain your brain

Please share your thoughts on the article

Cheeers………

-Pram

Dream In Depth

Dream’s Strength Depends on the Depth of Determination……

The power of human mind is enormous and the way we make use of its strengths is the exact measure of our achievements.

This article deals with a very sensitive matter of how to deal with dreams, i mean the daydreams. By the end of this article you will be able to understand why daydreamers are termed lazy!

Usually people say we need to have great dreams to make  great achievements and also they say daydreamers are lazy, crazy isn’t it?

Well, you know there is a thin difference between the determined dreams and lazy ones.

A student is planning to prepare for his examination, he remembers what his teacher said, “To dream big”. He aim’s high. He starts thinking about scoring high marks and becoming a topper. This thought gradually turns into a dream and he starts projecting himself as a topper in his own world of dreams. He is immensely enjoying being a topper, receiving awards, getting appreciation from his family and making his friends jealous.After enjoying his achievements in his dream, do you think he can really put the required effort to achieve the same thing in reality?

No, actually his mind is now tricked!

Tricked!! Ha ha, interesting right?

Yes, believe me, his mind is really tricked. It has already enjoyed the essence of success within itself and so, it will never let him work hard to achieve what he already has achieved in his dream and this follows laziness.

A dream should be dreamt in a proper depth. That depth should not go to an extent of enjoying its output nor be very weak that will be ignored. To be specific, a dream should be like a catalyst that will boost the confidence levels for working better in the path of achievement. If  the dream is regarding achievement, it improves the determination and if the dream is regarding enjoying the achievement, mind gets tricked!, which leads to laziness.

That’s the practical reason behind the daydreamers being lazy.

-Pram

Looking At The Lighthouse

“Destination can be reached only when the distance is covered”

Yes, its a very simple sentence and a raw truth. Looking at the destination and moving along is the most exciting thing, it gets adventurous when you have some glitches and of course it gets you into  trouble if you are not lucky enough to get through those glitches with your fight.

Imagine a sailor, sailing alone in a glorious ocean, enjoying the evening breeze and humming a tune making him go nuts, his chest filled with happiness and thanking god for the lovely creation of nature. He remembered now that his destination should be reached before it gets dark and  he had very less time to make it to the sea shore. He started sailing faster and got a bit nervous though he knew that he would reach there by time. The breeze  started to blow fast, the same breeze which was making him enjoy is now making him annoy, the loneliness he enjoyed with the majestic ocean is irritating him now. His bad luck had a raise, the breeze turned into wind and is making the waves hit his boat hard. He was a good sailor and tried to sail his best. A thought that he wasted time enjoying the evening breeze started hunting him, he cursed himself, he hated the ocean and tried to sail faster. The wind increased its pace making the waves hit him more hard and he observed that the moon is getting covered by dark clouds. He felt very unlucky, a wave of fear started to acquire his mind but he din’t loose faith and kept sailing. Now he had something to smile, he found the lighthouse

Lighthouse

Oh wow!, he felt happy and exciting  looking at the lighthouse standing tall, proud and majestic. He felt he had some luck with him, got a boost up from this and sailed with  more enthusiasm. The waves are still hitting hard and it started to rain. The happiness he had looking at the lighthouse vanished with just a couple of hard waves and a hint of heavy rain.  The more he sailed closer, more farther looked the lighthouse.

Though there were many bad things around which made him feel miserable, Looking at the Lighthouse would give him strength and power to try hard for making the destination. Yes, there he sails, pushing his muscles hard, making his mind solid , so that the waves could never shatter him.

The sailor here represents every common man who wants to achieve something, every one here has to sail through the difficulties to reach their goals. It might be difficult and miserable but visualizing the destination to be reached like the sailor saw the “lighthouse” gives the courage and strength to move on.

If you ask me , did sailor reach the lighthouse?

Well, the sailor is getting all his powers within to sail on along with the wind blows and wave hits. But, it became dark, he is lost and the only hope he has is that, he is able to see the lighthouse. He tries, tries and tries. Never gives up.

Thanks a lot for your time spent on my words,

Pram

Fear of Future

Hey There…… Hellooo…..

Are you interested in knowing your future by prediction??

Yep, most of us might at least like to have a glimpse about it.

Now, I will tell you a story of  a king, who had a powerful dynasty and strong belief on astrology. Once the king invited an astrologer to his palace and asked him to predict his future, the astrologer made all the analysis and said,”The King will be dead in 6 months”.

Ha Ha….. just imagine what would be the king’s condition, he believed in astrology very strongly. He became clueless of what to be done, his mind flooded with fear and he was so much frightened that he was about to die at that moment itself, but his minister was an intelligent man, he tried to convince the king that the astrologer was a fool and not to believe in him. The king was in no mood to agree what minister said, but the minister wanted king to come out of his fear, so he asked the astrologer to re-predict king’s future. Though the astrologer felt his prediction was perfect, he did the entire analysis again and said, “yes, my analysis is perfect and the king will be dead in 6 months”. The King was utterly frightened, the minister became much furious and the astrologer looked gusty.  People at the palace held their breaths waiting for the next move, now the minister had a role to play; he asked the astrologer, “Have you made the prediction of your future? if so, when are you going to die?”, and the astrologer replied, “Yes, i have made it and i will be alive for twelve more years”. That’s it, the minister quickly drew his sword and chopped off astrologer’s head and said to king “Did you see this liar? He is dead at this moment”.

Fine, now let’s come out of the palace and analyze the story…… We can have different opinions  looking at this story in many point of views.  The only question which makes the actual sense is “Did the king get benefited by knowing his future?”.

Alright,  it’s left to the individual conviction on how to realize the above story, but one thing should be true if you want real success, as said by Swami Vivekananda, ” Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, & know that you are the creator of your own destiny”.  A thread of the above story was also present in one of the books which depicted his works.

Thanks for reading and have a great time

Pramodh N S