Today is 15 August 2020. Notwithstanding the mental calendar that keeps informing every CAT aspirant about the D-Day – 29 November 2020 – today is a significantly important day. This is our 74th Independence Day.
It is an irony that we are locked up at our confines this year, even as we celebrate a day that signifies – at least literally – the exact opposite of being locked up. Survival is a privilege at this moment, and we must constantly count our blessings.
But, that is exactly the point. Can “independence” be viewed as antithetical to the pandemic-induced lockdown we all find ourselves in? What was that one crucial factor that brought our country the independence we feel so proud about?
Of Resilience and building it up
RESILIENCE – yes, that is the ‘crucial factor’ I am referring to. I recently watched an interesting video that spoke about how resilience could be built. Since I am not a fan of personal narratives, I will skip the flashback story and cut to the chase. I noticed that there are three key strands to “cultivate” resilience in its truest sense. And this cannot be more relevant to anybody than a CAT aspirant.
1) Some suffering is part of the journey
Zinedine Zidane, the great footballer and coach once famously said:
“In football, you have to suffer. You cannot be in the final without suffering, it’s even better, more beautiful when you win like that.”
Spells of lonely preparation with Trigonometry, the feeling of being outrun by a dicey DILR set, OR doing fantastically well in a mock and then realizing that there are still about 300 people who are miles ahead are all part of this arduous journey you have chosen. We are all perhaps not mature enough to savour it, but we can be resilient enough to expect it and accept it.
Grit through your tougher spells. Overcome boredom. Build that resilience. Almost every philosophy in the world from Japanese Zen to Greek Stoicism actively recommends some version of suffering.
Always remember if there is something you have to power through, it builds character.
2) Tune in to the good bits
We perhaps do not realize this well enough, but there is ambient negativity amidst us often.
The most abundant element on earth is no longer oxygen – it is outrage. Some of the smarter people have found ingenious ways to stoke, capture and then monetize this outrage.
Frequently, our stands are anti-this or anti-that; we are either against crazy-bhakts or against woke-liberals. We love take-down pieces, we revel in fall-from-grace stories. Research says this environment affects us more than it affects the ones taken down. Despite all this, resilient people – only the resilient people – are really careful to choose where to focus their attention on.
Stay away from packaged content of any form. Tune in to original, classy content (preferably in the text form) and go on a ride without picking sides. Suffering might be part of the journey but no one said we should not have fun in the remaining parts.
3) Ask yourself, “Is this helping me or harming me?”
Sometimes, you can bring in focus by consciously tuning yourself back in. Any time your mind strays into weird, boring or potentially detrimental regions, ask yourself the question and tune back in. The past is prologue – so do not fret endlessly about your class X, XII, UG scores. The future is uncertain, so do not perennially evaluate your chances under different scenarios of CAT scores.
As the Aamir Khan character in Rang De Basanti says, do not mess your present by always thinking about the past and future.
August 15th is a wonderful day to start something new
Around the time of independence, Winston Churchill had this to say of India.
“Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”
We have done alright – a vibrant young country that revels in its contradictions. We are far from perfect, but still hopeful about the future.
Few gave a country with more languages than Europe much chance of surviving. But here we are, 73 years old, as vulnerable to optimism as ever but resilient as hell. That resilience is the hallmark of this nation. And that resilience, folks, should be the cornerstone of your CAT 2020 preparation from today.
The day the country celebrates the occasion of its birth is as good as any to go boldly towards new frontiers. If Messrs Nehru and Gandhi had not been dogged and optimistic, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. Now it is up to us to reach out for our own ambitions, sign up for tonnes of work along with a bumpy ride and hope for the best.
Stay safe, Happy Independence Day, and best wishes for CAT preparation.
(If you have not yet registered for CAT 2020, follow our CAT 2020 registration series that guides you through most aspects of the registration process.)
Rajesh Balasubramanian takes the CAT every year and is a 4-time CAT 100 percentiler. He likes few things more than teaching Math and insists to this day that he is a better teacher than exam-taker.
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