Yesterday, night was fantastic. Well, sort of. I think it was a lot more than that.
I work in a team of 17 very strongly opinionated people where we all lead our own teams of people of our age or an year younger or older. We all are (I assume) are smart, educated and come from families that can pay up for things that we need and we want; quiet comfortably, to say the least we are perfect pictures of 20 year somethings who will do good in life, make enough money to spoil ourselves and donate a little as well.
So far all that I stated does not set us apart from who we are and what makes us “special” in our ways.
What lies ahead is a unique story of our stints at youth leadership and our bloated ambitions that are training us to be more than ourselves everyday. We are a team, an executive body for a local chapter of the world’s largest student run organisation, AIESEC. Well I am not writing this to tell you what AIESEC does or it is another attempt to put AIESEC in a good light. You can always Google AIESEC and read about it or simply follow this link — www.aiesec.in, or this www.aiesec.org. They present this global organisation more articulately then I ever could.
Over an year ago, when the application process started for us to bring us our positions, little we knew but certainly that life was about to change. Raghav, our team leaders told us, “You are no longer ordinary youngsters, people will now notice what you do and follow your actions virtually and physically all the time, you are under judgement of your peers all the time.” Well this was a little unsettling and very flattering to be honest but this was just the start. From there we started on a year long ride of hundreds of meetings, targets to achieve, people to convince and ideas to sell. We suddenly became very ambitious and more conscious. We want to win awards and achieve more numbers and earn more money for our organisation. We attend college, classes and family by day and work and celebrate our successes with each other by evening. Everyday is important and every day matters more than the last one.
To be honest, yes it did bring a lot of stress and problems in life which were more than we needed. We could have thought more about our degrees and love than of inactive members and falling growth charts. But we have had made our choices and have taken everyday by storm. Between all of this something magical happened.
I fell in love with a girl from my high school, I think I always did but just could never understand it. I did miss her more but could not bring it to surface and express it to her.
Anyway there was no time to think about it. Nor that I had any option but to keep it that way. After all, it was the best thing to do.
With time 17 of us became more closer we literally ate, slept and thought about same things over and over again. With things going all good and seemingly progressive we all started to enjoy our company and soon it became a routine, we are in habit of being along and it makes us very comfortable and happy. We all need and we long for each others approval and constant criticism. We love each other, we like to believe.
However, Last night was fantastic, well sort of… I think it was more than that, it was our annual alumni dinner night with people who are doing great in their lives joined us to celebrate another year of success for our organisation and also recalled their days.
We witnessed and realised, in matter of days we will be alumnus to AIESEC and someone will take our position and take forward where we stop. It made us very emotionally moved and made us think of what have happened which makes it so difficult for us.
First, we worked together for a common purpose and had only one vision, to make it big in all possible forms. Secondly, we dropped all our pretence and lived everyday with full acceptance and to the fullest, most importantly open our hearts, and allowed each other to see the other with all honestly and genuinely made friends. We have shared all that we could with one another in last 400 odd days and now it is time to go our ways and make it happen in the bigger world.
Well, personally it has been a very heartwarming experience, meeting generously affectionate people, facing failures together and keeping it high throughout, it has been a great journey. From a dreamer to believer, I have grown into a wise man(again I assume). I think I have learnt to love and let go, and to hold on to what I believed in, most importantly people. Individuals and teams that have defined me today.
And as for tomorrow, I am a much more prepared. I am more human to my benefit. I learnt to to trust and accept. I am humbled to learn along.
“Honour”, I have had said to be part of it, the journey have been indeed so. I think 17 is not just a unique number to me.
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