When I was not enjoying doing Chartered Accountancy, I made a switch to Law.
We all go through life as if it were a roller coaster ride where we have only the option to get into the ride (birth) and getting out of it (death). But is that what life really is - A series of uncontrolled chaotic events that determine our pleasures and sorrows? Are we just like the laboratory test animals where various tests are experimented on us and our reactions are observed? How can the specie that has invented so many things live like a specie that is without a purpose? Confused and deluded we merely trudge down the dusty path of life! Isn’t this the manner in which many of us lead our lives?
My life was similar. When things went right, I believed it was because I had everything in control. When things went wrong, I believed nothing was in my control. I would not respond to situations rather I would react to situations. My life became a series of reactions. Then I joined for 11th grade in Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary School. The time for a significant shift in my belief system began. From being brought up as a pampered prince by my parents in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to one among the many in the bustling hamlet known as Puttaparthi, I was about to learn some of life’s most significant lessons. Puttaparthi, the abode of my Master. On His samadhi were inscribed the words ‘Love All Serve All’ and ‘Help Ever Hurt Never’. These simple yet profound phrases would later on define the lives of each student that walked out of the portals of these holy institutions.
After I graduated with a B.Com (H) degree, following my Master’s command I took up Chartered Accountancy as my career option and dove into the studies and the articleship. After 2 years of that, all I can say is CA constitutes of stunts performed by professionals and must not be tried at home 😊.
As someone who had never tasted failure, CA was a rude awakening. I had written the exams thrice but to no avail. Disheartened, I approached my Master and He said, “Do Law.”
Today I’m pursuing Law at St. Joseph’s College of Law at Bangalore. I used to wonder – would it have not been better if I had started studying law a couple of years earlier rather than waste two years in vain?
Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Looking backwards I have realised that what I learnt in those 2 years has prepared me for what I am to face in these next three years. Those hours of gruelling work at the office during articleship made me ready to face what I have to. As I wrote this article, I have made peace with my failure. I would not say make peace. I am what I am because I failed and I learnt from it. I have broken out of the shackles that bound me. The make believe that I had in my mind had convinced me that I cleared one group. Yesterday when one of my friends asked me, “How do others react to your ‘switch’?”, it got me thinking. The introspection that followed the question made me realise that I was again becoming a product of reactions and possible judgements of others.
So as Steve said, I look backwards and can now see that the dots are connected. I trusted in my Master and that has made all the difference…