Today, something small happened, but it stayed with me.
One of the didis who works with us asked for leave. My first response was a simple no. The day was busy, with plenty of work to accomplish. She then said softly, “Ma’am, I need to complete some formalities for my son’s competitive exam.”
Out of curiosity, I asked, “Which exam?”
She said, “Engineering.”
For a moment, I was surprised. And that surprise made me pause. It made me realise that somewhere inside, I had been carrying an assumption about who usually gets to pursue something like engineering.
I asked her where he was taking coaching.
She said very simply, “Ma’am, we cannot afford coaching. He studies online. Our house is small, so every day he goes to the library at 8 in the morning and comes back at 9 in the evening.”
For a few seconds, I had nothing to say.
I could imagine that boy sitting quietly in a library for hours every day. No big coaching institute. No elaborate setup. Just a table, a chair, and the discipline of showing up every single day.
These days, we often say life is extremely competitive. But sometimes I wonder if it really is.
When so many people are busy scrolling endlessly through reels and distractions, perhaps the real competition is actually much smaller — among those who choose to focus.
That boy, sitting somewhere in a quiet library from morning till evening, has already chosen which side he wants to be on.
Interestingly, we are reading The Courage to Be Happy in our MasterClass these days. In one of the conversations, the philosopher says:
“The past doesn’t exist.”
At first, it sounds strange. But maybe it simply means this — what really shapes our story is not what happened before, but what we choose to do now.
Watching that boy in my mind, sitting in a library somewhere and quietly preparing for his dream, that line suddenly makes sense.
You now decide the past.
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