The Game Of Life
I read this sentence- “Your approach as a salesman, and your approach as a sales manager cannot be the same. As a salesman, your success is your success. As a sales manager, your team’s success is your success!”, quoted by Mahatria. I tell myself — Yes, it’s so true. It means that moving forward, as I grow, I need to upgrade my skills, learn something new, have some strategies, manage my time in a better way. How will I do it? Just as I take a pause, some beautiful answers unfold……
I am sitting here as an observer of my own life. I look back and see how I have moved from a toddler to this school going cute little girl. I remember how nervous I was about going to this new school, where I imagined teachers would be strict and the students around me as strangers. Those goosebumps disappeared as I slowly got accustomed to the new environment. Some of those teachers are still amongst my favourites, and some of those strangers are still my friends. Four years into the primary school, now I have to move to a secondary school — again the nervousness of morning school, new seniors, getting acquainted with new teachers, new subjects. School changed to college, uniform changed to casuals, college changed to office, school bus changed to trains, exam patterns also changed. So, if I sum it up, almost everything kept changing. The newness kept coming differently, it kept revealing its different forms but so did life, and so did I. I kept going, I kept moving, didn’t stop. Nor did the newness.
“How did I keep going?” I ask myself. How did I learn to travel in local trains instead of a school bus? I didn’t know what skills I would need in college to make friends or rather if I would need any skills to make friends. How did move from student to a professional? How did I know? How did I learn? How did I do it? But I remind myself that I did it. And I did it so well.
Despite not knowing the ‘Hows’ of these new levels, something kept me pushing. That something is the power which comes with the new phase. It’s like how after reaching a certain point in a level, Dave from our traditional computer game gets a jetpack to reach the door. It’s like how our player in Contra gets those power booster guns to accelerate their strength. I agree that along with those power boosters we need the new strategy, the curiosity to clear, the new techniques which we as a player acquire or adapt. Similarly, life automatically gifts us some power boosters to clear each level of life. We can’t get it early, at a previous level or a level after. But we will get it just at the right time.
So, now when I am looking back at school, studies, everything from the past appears so easy, just a cakewalk. At that point in life, the starting point of that level, it was new, and it was unknown. I just smile and remind myself, “Honey, it’s the level which you already cleared!” Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” So if life cannot be lived always looking backwards, let’s look forward to the next phase, the next move, the next shift. Remembering:
Power Booster + My skills = Winning the Level
Getting excited for the next phase, taking the first move and letting the power booster unlock itself.
