The valuable asset

Once one of my friends had joked "Life is a balance sheet. Its assets and liabilities side always match". I laughed at him and made fun of him at that time but then I was thinking about this yesterday and realized may be there might be a deep meaning to it. May be .. I might be stretching the point here but cant help it.

Liabilities loosely speaking are your responsibilities or duties. When you actually perform them they get converted into assets. For eg. take friendship. Isn't it a liability...yes it is. You have certain responsibilities towards your friends but at the same time isn't it your asset? Most definitely it is. I generally belive that the people/organization you put your effort into (basically they are your liabilities) become your streghts and your asset. Like any other asset in real life you need to spend some asset to accquire another one. So you need to spend time and effort to develop your assets and this is the price of your assets.

Taking this view does bring up a very interesting question. What is the most prized asset a person has? I believe that the most prized asset of a person should be an asset which is built into him. Which is not due to an external source. Which makes him better than others. I believe it the determination and self confidence that a person has. If you have the will to achieve success and the self belief there is nothing ... i mean nothing in this world that could ever stop you from reaching your goal. All the other qualities and drawbacks become secondary ...it might take you more time to reach than some of the more blessed soles but it certainly a "when" question and not a "whether" question.

Look at most of the famous people in the history. Edison had made some 1000 prototypes of the bulb before he succeeded. JK Rowling's Harry Potter was rejected by lot of publications. Abraham Lincoln became the president after studying under street light. Saurav ganguly never gave up after been ejected from the Indian cricket team. And these are not exceptions. The common thread among most successful people is not intelligence, not charisma, nothing but there will to fight, there will to hang on no matter what. There self belief that they will be able to come up from the mess they were in.

So I pray to god not to give me money not to give me riches or intelligence but to give me this asset. The strength to fight when the chips are down. The strength to believe in my capabilities and abilities. I pray to god that I fight!!!

A friend in need

As a famous saying goes "A friend in need is a friend indeed". Very cliched way to start ...may be but then if you are writing something about friendship where to start. Having said that I don't think that I have never seen a correct explanation of the whole saying. The most important aspect of the saying has always been ignored. What do we mean by being "in need"? Some people will say that it is very easy .. when you are troubled or sad or things are not going your way that is the time of need... that is the time of need. So in adverse conditions and circumstances people who stand by you are your real friends. But surprise of all surprise I don't agree to this. I don't believe that you need a person when you are down. You should be hard and tough enough to face the circumstances and travel through it. If you are not then you cant guide a friend of yours through trouble if required and if you can't do that then you can't have a good friend. Moreover I believe that people who come to you when you are down mostly come to you to be visible and derive pleasure from your misery. They are happy that you are suffering and hence come to you to feel good about themselves and say "We are not as bad as this guy". Even if he is a good guy and wants to help you I would describe him as your well wisher rather than a friend. There is a difference between 2. Your parents are your well wisher but they might not be your friends.

So this again brings us to the fact that what is it that defines "being in need". I believe that people who are with you when you are happy and share the pleasure with you are the ones who are your real friends. They are happy because you are happy and this automatically suggests that you share some kind of bonding with them. Happiness does not mean anything if you are alone and hence you need somebody to share it... hence the phrase "in need". This is the real need a friend should fulfil. He/She should be an integral part of the happy moments one has had.


If you look at your happy moments I bet you would be able to see all best friends in it but this might not necessarily true for your sad/unhappy moments.

But I would go one step forward than this and say "A real friend is one who is with you ALWAYS". I think that if you have a really good friend he will always be with you as you would never be able to get him/her out of your mind/heart. He is with you irrespective of your condition. So a friend in need is a well wisher and a friend in happy moments is a friend but the true friend is one who is always with you and you cant get rid of him/her how hard you may try.

Makes sense.. may be .. may be not.. !!!

Fate: The undiscovered

I have been wondering over a long time whether fate/destiny exist i.e. whether there is a hidden force which is super natural that affects the outcomes of our efforts. I was unable to make a decision till my fourth year at IIT-JEE and then something happened and it became very clear to me that fate is a false premise to hide your failures. It is for the weak and the pansies to hide behind when they are in the firing line. I believe that people can control the outcome of any effort they put to a large extent and the small part which they cant ascertain is not due to luck or some supernatural force but due to the fact that they did not consider certain dimensions into account while make a decision or forgot to implement them. Finally when the result does not go their way they seem to say that we out in every thing but we are not LUCKY enough to succeed.

But then as fate would have it (:)) certain events unfolded yesterday. It seemed to far fetched to consider the fact that they would all happen on the same day yet the did. Was this fate? I don't know but my firm belief in non-existence of fate sure did take a huge hit.. may be it is there...may be it is the uncertainty associated with every action in life. since there is uncertainty in life we don't know the final outcome and hence we try to name it fate. I believe that probably I would never be able to come up with a final answer to this debate but I did uncover one thing in all these things.

Even if there was something called fate -- by definition you would not be able to control it and hence its irrelevant to decision making or analysis of situation. So people who try to factor it in are always worse than those who don't and hence all in all don't think about fate just do what you can to your best. As Lord Krishna has famously said: "Put in your effort and forget the rest"!! I hope I would be able to do this in my life.