WHEN YOU'RE OFFERED A SEAT ON A ROCKET SHIP...

 



“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship,

don’t ask ‘What seat?’… Just get on.”

Sheryl Sandberg

 

This morning, I bumped into a middle-aged man inside our building lift. He was a stranger. So, after the spontaneous exchange of the courtesy ‘Hello’,  the he asked me, “What do you do?”

“I am a teacher… I teach,” I said instinctively.

“What do you teach?” the gentleman asked.

“I teach Accounting subjects?” I replied.

“Where do you teach?” was the next question.

“I teach in my own coaching centre,” I responded.

“Is it?... Where is your centre?”

By then, the lift had landed on the ground floor, and the gentleman had to rush up, his way… and I had to do the same, my way…

I forgot about this conversation completely, as such questions from strangers have been routine… You see, I would ask the same way to someone. So, nothing strange about this stranger’s questions – or, call it his  curiosity.




Here in my class, at the end of the lecture, I found myself telling my students, “After you go home, sit down and ask yourself…”

In that pause, I could read the curious/confused faces of my students… They wanted to know, “Ask to ourselves what?”

“Any guess?” I teased.

Blank!

“Each one of you ask yourself – ‘What am I doing?... Why am I learning this subject? Where and how am I going to use it… Is it relevant?'”  

I knew, that in the answers to these questions (to self) was concealed

the source, depth and motivation level of my young students. I wanted them to be self-motivated… passionate and persistent… curious and farsighted… I wanted to tell them, that the moment they found the answers to the said questions, they would find their mission and the vision, too…

I wasn’t having the morning conversation (with the stranger in lift) in my mind as I was having this conversation, here, with my young students. But, strangely, I could feel inside me, that unless someone kept asking me such questions – “What do you do?” or “Why do you do it?” etc.”,  my own mission and vision would not assume the depth and the beauty which I was trying to project before my students…




“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship,” let’s remember Sheryl Sandberg’s words, “don’t ask ‘What seat?’… Just get on.”

Oh, that feeling of getting on a rocket ship!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s.: Pixabay

 

Video: America's Got Talent

 

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