The most valuable thing I’ve learned from my mentor
It is a Teacher’s Day special article and what lies ahead are the introspections and contemplations of my life and what role my favorite teacher has played in my life so far —
My favorite teacher has always over-emphasized on the popular saying “Attitude is everything” and from the very early days I never really understood the depth of this and always used to think that he is unnecessarily obsessed with the quote. He used to tell us stories about successful people (From Abraham Lincon to Helen Keller to Thomas Edison)and of almost all of the stories the moral used to be “attitude”. One anecdote I explicitly remember is — Once I was trying to shut the jammed class door after my tuition class and after one attempt I said that I could not do it. He got baffled up after hearing this and gave me a half-an-hour long lecture about my attitude. He said that your attitude towards these small things will shape your attitude towards everything in life. He never got upset about the things that the other teachers used to get absolutely mad about. He didn’t care much if you score the highest or you barely passed your test. But he absolutely was obsessed with getting to know how you’re feeling after scoring the highest or just passing the test. The main thing that he used to care about was how you’re behaving in any situation whatsoever. He focused on the RIGHT thing from the very start and implanted it so well in me.
After 2 years of preparing for competitive exams, 4 years of college and 2 years of job and of course personal life on the side, now I realize that the only thing that has always helped me is the attitude my favorite teacher embedded in me. The times when I used to score poorly in JEE mock tests the only thing that picked me up was the attitude for finding out the reasons behind screwing up that test, sleeping over that feeling of failure and starting fresh from the next morning. The times when I used to get overwhelmed with so many things going on and used to screw things up while studying in college, the only thing that was with me was my positive attitude that I’ll sort things out one thing at a time. At work, when I deep dive into the unknown and I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do, the only thing I’m left with is my attitude for accepting my flaws and failures and the determination to do whatever it takes to be brilliant at what I do. And of course, after a bad day in the life, the only thing that makes me look forward to the next morning is the attitude for accepting things as they are and be equally hopeful for life.
So yes, you are not your degree, you’re not which course you did, you’re not your CGPA, you’re not your resume. You are how you see things. You are how you look at the problems. You are what you do after a failure. You are how you see the world. You are your attitude.
