OVERCONFIDENCE

A few of us are overconfident in what we do. If we know we are overconfident about our studies we should do something that will show us our limits. Look at the infinitely beautiful night sky, see the sunset, see the moon, go for a tough trek (Kumar Parvat?) or into Himalayas where you (have to) look at your physical limits consciously, at every breath. See the magnanimity of wonders of nature that is around us. It reminds me of words from a comedian George Carlin who says “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” Before sex came to us we were curious about ants, stamps, tops, marbles, gulmohur trees, shapes in the clouds, the twilight horizon. After sex happened our interests have moved to the swaying hips and built up machos. There’s nothing right or wrong in what attracts our attention. It is. It just happens. But the hibiscus flower or an ant doesn’t take away our breath any more the way it did to us earlier. If you are a botany student and if a hibiscus flower is shown to you, you say “I know…”. The question that arises is do you want to transcend “I know” or you want to stick to it. That’s your choice. Somewhere you say to yourself “I can finish my syllabus in next 10 days then why study now. I have so many holidays between my exams.” Studying anything is to know what you don’t know. There is a difference between ‘I can do’ and ‘I have done’. Your deceitful mind keeps fooling you with ‘I can do’, ‘I know, I can do’, ‘last semester I had done it’ and all such thoughts. Your conscience knows your mind is fooling but you like to relax in the arms of your mind, you don’t want to get down to reality, you don’t like to listen to your conscience. You have made marks as your ultimate goal. Is it possible to shift your goal from marks to something you think is bigger than that? Tomorrow your goal will shift from one ‘m’ for marks to another ‘m’ for money. Can those “m’s” be byproducts of something that you do which feeds your soul? We get marks, marks don’t get us. We earn money, money cannot earn a human (people are sold in the market and that’s a different topic of discussion). Whatever you go behind, you will stay behind it, you cannot surpass it. Go behind marks, you can get 100/100, when you go behind money the zeros behind 1000 will go on increasing and one day you will be thinking (which your parents may be already on this thought) ‘what is the goal of my life?’ Don’t search for an answer. Do a sincere inquiry into the question. Overconfidence or under confidence are conclusions made out of past experiences by a ‘clever’ mind. Conclusions are answers. Stick your aspirations to questions, not to answers. Questions are vehicles that will keep the fire of inquiry on and answers are stagnant destinations. A sincere question can change the course of your life.

Best luck for the last few papers of your VTU exams!
(see my previous blogs at http://ash-studs.blogspot.com/)