www.sandeepatre.com

“No one thinks about you as much as you think they do”.

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To most of the people out there, you are at best a fleeting thought in the mind which too comes only when either something related to you is ‘trending’ in their lives, or if something related to you incidentally pops up in their attention arena.

And even those who you think are obsessed with you – any new relationship, or an old relationship with new major developments – think about you a lot at stretch, but only in patches. They also keep toggling their attention between you and other usual or pressing matters. So effectively, total span of your intrusion in their minds is also only marginal.

So, in all… Sorry dude! Irrespective of what you think of yourself, you don’t matter that much to anyone out there…

That should be disheartening…isn’t it?

Actually…‘Not quite’!

That should rather be liberating. Yes! Because if what’s above is true then that frees you of any burden to carry! It leaves you alone, even in a seemingly crowded interconnected world of yours. And because, whether for your successes or failures, your odds of getting more chunk of someone’s mind-share don’t improve significantly, thus while staying connected, you should still focus more on…‘doing your own thing’.

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After all, as great poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan said…”Aloneness is empowering”!

Akelepan kaa bal pehchaan <— Click here to listen to the lines of his poem in my voice. 🙂

“You can’t judge people by how far they have come…without knowing how far they have come from”.

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I have always found it erroneous to assess people solely by their current achievements, no matter how big or small they are. It is also important to see it in context of their background. Yes! Destinations have to be seen in reference to the journeys. Without that, it is difficult to put it all in the right perspective. And I firmly believe that a person should keep the same yardstick even while judging himself or herself.

The great composer Naushad had to struggle a lot in Bombay before he became a signature in music industry. He used to sleep on footpath opposite the Broadway cinema at Dadar. And when his legendary movie Baiju Bawra was released in 1952 at the same theater, as he crossed the road to reach the premiere, he started crying. When producer Vijay Bhatt asked the reason, he looked back at the road and said to him “You know Sir…It took me 16 years to cross this road”.

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Well! When people say to you…“You have gone way ahead”. Only you know that actually… “You have come a long way!”

He asked me “I have lost interest in this work, and in fact it is not going to be of any immediate benefit either. So why should I complete it?”…                       

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Well! The most peculiar thing about the sport ‘boxing’ is that majority of its preparation has to be done on your own, all by yourself, just with your punching bag hanging around or in an empty ring much before the coach arrives. And that’s why if you take time to get up and reach the ring 15 minutes late then there is no one around to know it.

And that’s precisely why there is a saying in boxing that “if you have cheated in those dark mornings… it will cost you in the limelight”.

Life is no different…

There are times when you have to do certain things only to impress…‘your own self’.

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…I smiled at the question and said to him “The biggest reason why you should complete it is… ‘because you started it’”.

There is something about ‘Goodness’ – about simple plain old-fashioned goodness.        

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I know what you are thinking…that in today’s frantic and factual life, it doesn’t ‘count for’ much…that every day as each one of us walks downtown, there are far more important qualities required…

…To be liked, you need attractiveness. To be remembered, you need stylishness. To spot opportunities, you need alertness. To showcase self, you need aggressiveness. To stump competition, you need craftiness. To get ahead, you need smartness. To stay ahead, you need cleverness. And to change the game, you need shrewdness…

Boy!! It does take a lot to survive downtown.

But, you know what! As you drive back, with all the glow-signs behind you, when you enter your home, then, to smile for no reason as you comb in front of the washbasin mirror, and to like the man you see there, all you need is basic deep-rooted Goodness…

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…the satisfaction that during the day, at no point did you forget that…your ‘soul was not up for sale’. 🙂

One of my favorite sayings is… “Map is not the territory”.                    

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My work has two aspects – ‘to reach more people’ and then ‘reach more to people’. To simplify, I might be speaking to a large audience, training a select group, and then discuss at length with one individual, all in the same day. Thus, I require to shift from one mode to another – extrovert to ambivert to introvert. Well! It’s tough, but every bit worth it.

While most people think that out of all these roles, my favorite role should be the first – that of an orator, to be honest, I derive more fulfillment from the last two roles.  The reason is that here I get more opportunity to bring the change that I talk about in the first role. And here’s where I find one of the most peculiar human-behaviors at play…

…When I talk to a person about how something has to be done in enough details, I see a series of emotions appearing on his or her face – realization, hope, relief, stimulation and then even satisfaction. When they leave, it seems as if their circumstances have changed and they’ve got what they are looking for. But Alas! They forget…‘map is not the territory’.

Yes! It is one thing to know a path and visualize it, and entirely other to… walk it!

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In other words, someone else can only bring change to you…only you can bring it in you.