Having hit a sudden and definite lull in the study marathon, I found myself reaching out to the internet for a pick-me-up. I was flailing and clutching at anything that would help me regenerate that desperate need which fuels the hours in the library. While social media has its obvious advantages, it also seemed to rub in its point about how most of my contemporaries seemed to have a three dimensional life; everyone seemed to be in the reaching out for their goals, travelling and living phase and I seemed to remain, if not regress, into the living at home and studying phase. Suddenly, the goal just wasnt enough. I felt like I was at the 12th km of a half marathon, and my need for finishing was..flagging. This is not such a great place to be in. According to general consensus, this was the time I was supposed to feel adrenaline, and gear up, set a pace, so that I can finish strong, pass with flying colours etc. Instead there was just, ‘meh’.
Then I hit the concept of “delayed gratification”.
I seem to have arrived at this mental bus a little late. It isnt a new concept, but just those words werent quite framed in that way and embedded in my brain. The oft repeated, and severely cliche-d “this too shall pass” has begun to take new root and spread out its branches, like a tree growing caught in time lapse photography. (This may be a terrible metaphor,haha, but it says exactly what I want.
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Dr. Sean Richardson, in his TED talk on Mental Toughness, says, ‘Keep your eye on the big picture. Tune out the compusion. Focus on your actions, not on your results.’
And, Im not even religious, but I found:
2 Corinthians 4: 17-18 “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”
Beware, it says delay gratification, not everything. We cant get caught up with the delay, and turn it into complacency.
Here, the snippet about being action oriented inserts itself seamlessly into the tapestry.
The Bhagavad Gita puts it together well;
Verse 2.47: कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥
Karmaṇyēvādhikārastē mā phalēṣu kadācana, mā karmaphalahēturbhūrmā tē saṅgō’stvakarmaṇi.
Very roughly translated, it says, “Act, and dont worry about the fruits of your action.”
Evidently, the concept isnt exactly just ’emerging’.
2 TED talks, and a Stanford Marshmallow Experiment later, this is what I have gathered.
Make the decisions that are harder, and act on them. Then stick by it.
Effort is the key. Embrace the failure, as long as you are doing everything you can to achieve the goal. You can be action focused AND result oriented at the same time.
The essence seems to lie in the quality of effort and the persistence mindset.
I can imagine that all of this sounds trite, old and repetitive; like stuff out of motivational posters. I obstinately ignored any motivational poster category advice until these dots connected like the stars in Orion, and it all literally just fell in my lap. Into place. Into place, in my lap. I suppose you must really need to ask a question to be able to understand the answers that ‘the universe’ leaves lying around.
As it always happens in these situations, in the end Rocky Balboa prevails:
…and with that unforgettable rocky soundtrack playing in my head, I return to the battlefield of multiple choice questions and negative marking.
The Nomad in Spirit 