THE EARNEST AND THE YOUNG

Yesterday, one of my dear students wrote on her FB Status, with a great deal of delight and pride, that she would be, soon, starting her Articleship with one of the world’s top-four Chartered Accountancy firms. Immediately, her friends started sending her their congratulatory messages and best wishes. Just as I was about to add mine to the long list, my eyes fell on one of the crisp messages, rather a warning, by one of her friends: “Congrats; but, they will make your life hell!”

I held back my message… Because, I, really, wanted to tell these young-ones something important and valuable. So, here I am doing it, today.

Two years ago, before my student had embarked upon her dream to pursue Chartered Accountancy, I had counseled her saying, that, there were only two requirements to get into what she wanted to pursue: her aptitude and her attitude. Well, I am so proud to put on record, here, that my student had both: she was passionate about her field, and she was willing to work hard for it. And, the result was obvious: she cleared her entrance test (CPT) and, later, IPCC, both, in flying colors. Now, understandably, she was excited to take off with her Articleship with the firm she had coveted, always.

Would I repeat my advice, all over again? Or, wouldn’t the advice apply any longer: that is, passion and hard work – the aptitude and attitude – aren’t any longer required?

When I first came to this big city, some thirty-three years ago, my heart wanted to know as to how others realized their dreams in life… how they made it to the top. Fortunately, my hands fell on two roadside-books: ‘Think & Grow Rich’ and ‘The Law of Success’ by Napoleon Hill. Both these books, literally, became ‘The Bible’ for me… As an earnest, young-man, the lessons went straight into my thirsty heart. One of them was so easy to follow, that, I did not wait to do that:

“Go the extra-mile… Work more than what is paid for!”

Now, just think of it: You approach your work with a mindset, that, you are ready to work more than what you are paid for… You are ready to walk the extra-mile… go beyond the call of duty...

Yes, imagine, your boss observes this fine quality in you… that, you are full of enthusiasm, fired by your personal initiative… that, you don’t look at your watch all the time, don’t calculate your rewards only in terms of your immediate pay-cheque… that, Emerson’s famous ‘Law of Compensation’ (upon which Hill’s priceless lessons were founded) is into motion, all the time, wherein, when you trust the Universe and invest in your energies, She will pay you back – in compensation – in many, many fold… Yes, with compound interest…

That’s the kind of work-spirit the immortal Emerson and Napoleon Hill tried to infuse into my young and earnest heart…

The work not as a heavy yoke around my neck… 

but, as a happy mission to embark upon…

Soon, another amazing book was to fall into my eager lap - ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran. This’s how I found him concluding his teaching on the subject of ‘Work’:

Work is love made visible.

      And, if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,

it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple

and take alms of those who work with joy.

      For, if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread

that feeds but half man's hunger.

      And, if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,

your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

      And, if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,

you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

So, today, as I wish to conclude my own lesson on ‘Work’ in life, I want to tell my ‘earnest and young’, that, work done with great joy, zeal, commitment and vision, can only make our lives a happy heaven… Not hell!

I am sending my wishes, today…

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Rajiv Sharma