Survival of an Ant..luck or...

Last week I attended an interview, knowing not what to do until my turn I picked a conversation with a fellow candidate.

The first thing he asked me was ‘why are you searching for a job’, I have been asked this question several times by all the companies I have interviewed for and always I have given this cliché answer –BETTER CAREER PROSPECTS (whatever that means), but he had a very different reason-“My Manager ill-treated me, was not given my share of credit and wanted to prove a point to him” and he very well did; he had more than 4 offers in hand!

That made me realize a fact that there is nothing like LUCK for SUCCESS, it’s MOTIVATION. It is a pre-conceived notion that Success is 99% Hard Work and 1 %( at least) Luck, some also feel it is GOD’s Grace (let’s not even get into dissecting it, for me being an atheist I can go on and on about it).

Hardly people realize that there is some motivation behind their success. Sometimes Motivation can be in the form of Passion; if you are Passionate about doing something or achieving something then you hardly care about the outcome and plunge into doing it until you succeed. Be it Business tycoons or sportsperson they are passionate about their work which drives them to success. A lot of rags to riches stories are good example of motivation and determination.

There is a fine line between motivation and luck. If you do well in exams you would have had a motivation of proving yourself to your parents or the gift that they would have promised you on good marks in school; You bagged a great job offer it would be a motivation of having a handsome package or you would be irritated with your Manager or Jealous that your colleagues are doing better than you are currently. It need not be that huge, a simple thing like cooking a good meal or dressing up well could also be for simple motivating factor like appreciation. But sadly failure is attributed to being unlucky, hardly people realize its lack of motivation and determination.

Luck comes into picture when you bear the outcome of somebody else’s actions, where you are not a player but still you enjoy the fruit of it! You can call yourself lucky to have such good parents who always there for you or unlucky if they are not there always for you ;-) Mrs.Ambani or Mrs.Mittal can be called lucky as they are enjoying the success of their celebrated successful husbands but not Mr.Ambani or Mr.Mittal, as they have worked hard for whatever they are today.

LUCK and SUCCESS are two different things, as said -
Motivation triggers luck- MIKE WALLACE

According to me

SUCCESS=Hard work (smart work to be precise) + (motivation *determination).

My First Blog...Single Butterfly

I celebrated my birthday about a fortnight back, and let’s just say I was much older than the admissible age for marriage. My Mother had already started sulking a week before the D-Day about the fact of seeing her daughter around for yet another year with her (it’s not acceptable in India to leave your parents until you are married, there a lot of “DEPENDENCIES” you see!). Hence my day started with an obvious low note with all the sadness around but ended on a HIGH one…thanks to my friends!!!

This made me thinking about all the fuss about a girl at my age being single. My mother is being blamed and also she blames herself for bringing up her daughters independent, opinioned in all respects. If you are single above the permissible age of marriage you also get to hear a lot of gossip about yourself like “she has a broken heart” or “she is one sided love relationship” or even weird “your gender and sexuality is also questioned” .

I do understand that all of us need the special someone and as far as I have seen any human being on this earth is on a constant search for the special someone in their lives, be it of the opposite gender or same gender ;-). Some are happy once they find’ The One’ and others…their search is still on even after that!!! :-). Be it a little teenage girl or an adolescent or Celebrity or middle aged person or even old people, everybody need love and need a special person. Some start working towards it at tender age of 10-11 and others wait till they settle in their “CAREER” or wait to go with their “Parent’s choice”.

My illusion of a girl and a boy being friends forever was shattered at the start of my teens in school when all of sudden speaking to guys was seen as either one of them hitting on the other. It took me a while to understand this (actually a long time!). I almost went into hibernation after school, went to girl’s college to avoid all this…just could not understand as to why a beautiful relationship like “Friendship” can’t just be that?! So decided be away from the stuff I could not understand, I completely cut off from the male world, the only interaction I had was with my school friends and as years passed by I cut off from them as well.

Later during my Masters I had no choice, There again I was exposed to the fact of everybody was on constant hunt knowingly or unknowingly. I even got advice from good friends saying this was the right place and my last chance to find a prospective life-partner…soul-mate…blah...blah!! I passed out college with flying colors and with a lot of controversies. It moved to its peak when i started work, still being constantly bombarded with questions, suggestions, advice about getting married/having a boyfriend...it’s only then i am "SETTLED" in life, Most of my Friendship(not all) with Guys have sadly passed the phase of Proposals as they found their prospective girlfriend or wife in me, but I am glad a few could understand when I did tell them that I did not feel the same and we are great friends till date(touch wood!) .

I do understood a good old friend or the mysterious person who your parents bring to you could possibly be the special someone it’s just that both should feel THIS IS IT… HE/SHE IS THE ONE!!! But we need not be on constant look out for it; I believe it will find us. In my opinion YES a girl and a boy can be friends forever provided we pass this phase with dignity and maturity since this phase is sure to come in a friendship!!!

Whatever it is I still don’t understand how “SETTLED” tags with it. Having said all that I feel this is just destiny and we have no control over it...it could bring us the right person, wrong person or not show us the person till end...you never know...lucky soul find love once or more than once and unlucky ones don’t find it even once. According to me it’s just a part of life and definitely not be all and end all of life, you find it life is surely better...if not life will not be all that bad either.