Who is the protagonist?

Muhammad Muddassir
Nov 1 · 5 min read

9th August 2019 was the date I graduated from my engineering university, Exactly two months and twenty-one days later on 30th October I attended my first class of a post-graduate diploma for project management that I enrolled in a week before. If someone asked me how I was feeling during the period between my enrollment and my first class, I would have said I am feeling OK!

I would have lied.

I was feeling a lot of things but “ok” wasn’t one of them. I realized during the interview process that everyone who was undertaking the diploma was a lot more experienced than me and the absence of any fresh graduate let alone a batch mate really helped in making me insecure of my general lack of any job experience, the fact that I was unemployed and just a fresh graduate. I knew that I wanted to be a part of this program but at the same time, a lot of questions were also casting a confounding spell in the back of my mind.

In a room full of experienced professionals hailing from diverse backgrounds, how would I be able to not feel inadequate?

Have I Impulsively made a mistake, maybe I should wait for the next time they will offer this program!

I would often say to myself “Mudassir, It’s going to be a one year program, how are you even going to make new friends here when they are all from such accomplished backgrounds and you wouldn’t even be able to relate with them in any way?”

I had catastrophized almost all the worst-case scenarios which ranged from an awkward Introduction of myself to an all-out laughter episode from the soon-to-be classmates which I had the pleasure of experiencing once before.

When at last I got overwhelmed, being an expert in procrastination, I decided to keep this omelet of thoughts on the back burner and focused on reading the book that was recommended by Amal Academy. I was assigned to read a chapter from Dale Carnegie’s book. I am sure you already have an idea which book I am talking about, but if you don’t, it was How To Win Friends And Influence People (Ha! talk about perfect timings).

As cliché as having an epiphany by reading a self-help book may sound, there it was!

The quote by Alfred Adler that even Dale Carnegie himself felt the need to stress upon twice.

“It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life”

All my life, I had been so fixated about what other people were thinking of me, my actions and my personality that I never gave a thought about what were they thinking? and what was going on in their minds?

Thankfully, Dale Carnegie himself tipped me as to how I could find the answer to those questions.

“Become Genuinely Interested in Other People”

When you try to become interested in other people for 24 hours, Among other things, you are going to learn how to ask good questions, not just questions about weather and sports but the ones that make the other person think for a second before answering. You are going to learn how to listen more effectively to the things the other person is saying, not just listening to reply but to understand why and where they are coming from. You will see how the metaphorical walls that we build around us, the superficial perceptions we associate with others slowly start dissolving away.

I too learned a bit about these things from the people that I took an interest in. These people ranged from my family members and friends to the workers that were renovating the house and the Uber drivers that I rode with, these people also include my diploma program class fellows (didn’t forget about that, did you?).

I had decided that I will take the classes and come what may I was determined to move forward on that plan. As this was the first class, we all gave our introductions and I observed that although there were no fresh graduates and many of the students were professionals from various industries, with varying levels of experience and responsibilities, there also were some students who were currently not working. One such student was Rehan (name has been changed). When the class ended I rushed out and caught up to him, inquiring him about why he was unemployed, what his experiences were and what were his aspirations, in answer to which he offered quite useful information about the difference in workplace environments in manufacturing industries (his experience) and pharmaceutical companies (his aspirations). He told me how his decisions and his actions brought him where he was today. Now, Any other normal day I wouldn’t have run after this guy, sliding and slipping through a crowd hopping down the stairs, but l did and told him about how I thought that I might have joined this program way too early. He was kind enough to reassure me that it was a good choice and pointed out the pros which far-outweighed the cons.

Any other normal day, that clarity wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t taken an interest in him.

On my way back home, waiting for a chinkchi rickshaw, I remembered a word I heard from a TED talk or something, it was quite a peculiar word with a very melancholic undertone to it. Sonder.

A webisode on ”Sonder” by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows narrated, written, directed, edited and coined by John Koenig.

All my life, I had been believing that I was the main character, the protagonist. Taking an interest in other people’s life showed me how vivid everyone’s hopes, dreams, memories, and fears are. I am not the main character in other peoples life, They are. To people that are out of my circle, to people that I don’t know and who don’t know me I am just an ordinary extra-a passerby- and that in the large scheme of life, my fears and blunders are quite insignificant to actually give them the power to stop me from having a good life.

Random passersby, Each living a life as vivid and complex as you.

If anything, No one was the protagonist but everyone was a protagonist.

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