Last evening…I addressed all the toppers of the city at one of the annual events of our organization (Hats off…to all my colleagues, and the team members, and the achievers!)…
…After the session, amidst the entire buzz, I kept meeting all the people and put my best effort to give a sincere share of my ear to everyone…People kept asking various questions and I tried to explain best within the given constraints of time…
Still, three questions – asked at different points of time, by three childlike teenagers – were so interesting, that I promised them that I will answer them in a post… So here we go…
One of them asked “How to handle the pressure of being at the top?”
Well! “Don’t fall in love with the top…rather fall in love with what got you there!”… If you feel the pressure of being at the top then it only means that your mind is now infatuated with the top and now it is blackmailing your heart to keep pumping more blood into the system! If this will continue then one day the poor heart will collapse because in its most pure innocence, it originally used to do it out of sheer love for the work…
The other one asked “What if tomorrow I am not at the top?”
When I was speaking to the audience then it was fascinating to observe that last year, the place was same but people were different…So, that means that the chairs will not change but every year the faces will keep changing (and so would the eyes looking at them from the stage). So technically speaking, ‘Topper is a place…and not a person’… And as long as you are still loving what you do, it is perfectly perfect to even be ‘average’ in it! Keep having fun! …being a topper is at best a side-effect!
Another asked “Although I am a topper, somehow I know I am not that good; I don’t deserve it?”
Well, after getting an award, famous comedian Jack Benny once said “People say that I don’t deserve this award… but then, I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either!” The moral is…Come on! Don’t be so judgmental on yourself…the whole world is hell-bent upon judging you all the time, so at least please stand by your own side.
…I mean! Look at me!!! Last evening, after the session, when I was smiling for all the photographs, you know what was going inside me? Actually, all I was thinking was “Well! I know that I am just ‘a guy next door’… It is their problem that they have not figured it out! … So let’s enjoy till it lasts…”
…After all! …
…This too shall pass!
PS: Well! Last evening, someone also asked me “How have you managed to stay at the top for so long?”…My answer was “You feel so because you see me only when I am at the top…Between every two occasions when you see me, I go through my share of ‘drops’ although they are not visible.” (Well! people close to me pretty well know that basically I am very very introvert, and as long as someone is not stepping on my foot… I am perfectly comfortable being even a ‘nobody’!)
