POWER OF CRITICISM

“Enjoy everything from a nagging spouse to the traffic jams” was the line that I heard in the discourses of one of the saint and kept wondering “how”. Is it possible for anyone to enjoy the circumstances he least want to be in? Even the slightest of the criticism, ignorance, misbehavior, crisis and even the slightest shift from our daily routine disturbs us to the extent that instead for thinking the better side of it we actually turns the whole system upside down to revert the situation.

I kept thinking about it until one day when I myself experienced the pleasure in one of the odds. It happened so that my father got transferred to another town. It was almost a mid of the session when I was admitted to the new school. Near about half of the course was over which was required to be coped up and on the top of that half yearly exam dates were been displayed on the notice board. The pressure was too much for me to be handled and it increased when I found nobody in the class was ready to help me except few kind hearted ones. Actually they were not ready to accept a new face in the class at this point of time. The groups were already been made and the like ones had selected their friends. From their expression it seemed that I have to really prove my worth to make a space among them. I was terribly missing my old buddies and literally blamed my father for my loneliness and pressure.

Seeing no other outlet with whole heartedly I concentrated on my studies and started preparing for approaching exams. Soon the class tests were announced as the course of most of the subjects for half yearly exams was over. . My teachers were quite supporting and arranged the best they could for me. Thanks to the few friends who really helped me and cared for me. The rest seemed to be like little devil who did their best to make my life a hell with their mocks and comments. There was no use to enter into the verbal battle with them and so I decided to reply them back in more appropriate way. I pretended to ignore them for that moment and to get rid of their howling I devoted myself totally to the books.

Class test were started and I due to my night and days struggled managed to get almost highest marks in most of the subjects. This increased my confidence and my classmate’s jealousy. They were not able to appetize that I, who came so late in the class, was coming up with flying colors inspite of all their torturous efforts. But this time I was untouched with their terror and misbehavior. Each time I scored highest there came a sense of immense pleasure in shattering their hopes of my downfall. I was enjoying and happy even with their hatred for me, may be it was because I proved myself and made them realize that their unfriendly attitude hardly creates any difference to me and my aim remains unshaken. The trend continued and to everybody’s surprise I scored highest in the class in the half yearly exams. I apologized to my father for blaming him for my odds and thanked him because if he would not have taken the decision to move from the city, I would have never been able to meet up with my abilities and strength. I became the apple of the eye of every teacher and soon whole of the class became my friends but the one who helped me from the day one always held a special place among my friend list.

This is how my worst circumstances made me grow the most. From that day onwards I find a new challenge in anyone’s jealously for me. My enthusiasm and excitement gets doubled and the envy becomes the source of inspiration for me. I fight with the patience and faith that one day the other person’s anger will change into love for me. But I don’t stop myself from growing no matter how big the problem is. So never blame any of the day in your life saying that “today is a bad day for me” as each one has got something to be taught and with lots of the opportunities.

Published in Kormangala Times, Banglore.