An old letter from Satish

"What does your job involve? What kind of stuff will you be selling? I'm sure you'll do well if you want to. I tried some selling here myself and I wasn't too bad at it, but I simply hated the sales type of job. The only thing I can tell you(beware, here comes free unwanted advice!) is don't be afraid to try things and fail at them. I've done enough of that here last year, and I'm none the worse for it. Life goes on, its no big deal. Of course, I've had the advantage of not having 2000 relatives expecting me to succeed and nagging me all the time. So that made it easy for me to quit what I didn't like. Now I'm practically below poverty line, but I'm happy. All our lives we're trained to 'succeed', to get the 1st rank, etc. and pretty soon the fun goes out of work if there's too much pressure.

Anyway, enough philosophy from me. You are smart enough to live your life your way."


These are excerpts from a letter Satish(my brother) wrote to me when I was on the verge of my first job(selling financial software) in 1991.

Now I realise that I didn't understand the wisdom in what he said. I now teach these ideas to others through my workshops etc. I needed to make mistakes and learn from the experience.

I didn't even enjoy selling. But I didn't have the sense to explore what I did enjoy! And made the same mistake again and again!

But if somebody had told me " Its ok to make mistakes and fail" (Satish did, but I didn't get it) and I had understood it, I would not have suffered because of my failures. And there have been many. Today, I know that this was meant to be, in order to be who I am today; I wish I had 'got it' then! Thank you Satish for this letter. It is applicable to everyone even now.

Comments

  1. HarimohanAugust 2, 2011 at 11:06 PM

    But not failing enough times, we fail. Wonderful stuff. Satish, have you a different take now after all these years? Thanks for sharing Shobhs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dr. SevenAugust 3, 2011 at 4:26 PM

    Thanks for the reminder, Shobha! I have no memory of having written this!:)

    Hari, I still think almost everyone (including me) puts too much pressure on themselves. The thought of losing face by not satisfying someone's (maybe one's own) notion of success prevents people from letting go.

    When I recognize the nameless, faceless self, there is no face to lose, and life simply flows.

    ReplyDelete

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