You only appreciate Good during the Bad Times

Dear son,

There is a ‘good’ thing about the ‘bad’ times.
You learn to appreciate the ‘good” in the “good times” when you face “bad times”.

To many people that means jealousy, despair, disappointment, depression and for some even suicidal.

To your Dadu, your Dad and yourself it shall mean ‘inspiration’. It’s what has made your Dadu and me successful and I hope it does to you too. Did I hear you say, what do I mean? 

Let me begin with some of the learnings from good times / successful times. I have used success interchangeably to mean good times.

LUCK:

Many people believe that luck changes every game. Frankly it does, good luck and bad luck both. However, Luck is not a controllable thing. You cannot control Luck.

So consider yourself to be the unlucky one. That will make you strive for perfection, strive to do more than others (those lucky ones) and you know what sometimes luck will be with you.

Many people love to lean on astrology for luck. My advise to you, dont wait for the luck to happen. Make that change happen. If its your luck it will happen but dont wait for things to happen. Just keep doing your Job as you think to be correct.

Here is an anecdote from my life,

I remember Standard 6, English class. We had just got into our new houses (Red, Blue, Green and Gold). I was in Golds. There was a very good friend of mine, Shashidhar Shah. Very intelligent, good at English, and was chosen to be our section’s representative in English Elocution Contest. From 6th we used to have these contests that added up points for the House we represented. It so happened that Shashidhar was absent for couple of weeks during the crucial run up to the Elimination Rounds for the Elocution.

Our English Teacher, Mrs Fernandes, I think (its been a long time so I don’t remember her name now), chose me to be the backup candidate in case Shashi did not turn up. He did turn up. But with a strongly nasal situation, which made him not so good a candidate to compete with the best. I became the choice instead.

I went on to win the competition. But that piece of luck opened up in me public speaking abilities, which have helped me over the years.