The Day With a Messy Notebook

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Another old post. Another lesson learned :)
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Date: 4-08-2015


I loved the internship at Visteon. But now it is causing me some pain in the back.

Not because I had to sit for 9-10 hours in front of a PC, brainstorm and debug problems. I actually loved that. But because of this internship, I missed two weeks of my college and now I have to complete a lot of work within a couple of days. I have to complete two notebooks (oh yeah, I am that old-school boy who still makes a separate notebook for every subject and completes that notebook if he misses a lecture. And no need to make fun of me, there are a dozen more students like me in my class), have to complete 2 tutorials, one lab and a project as well. And before ramming this keyboard hard, I managed to complete a notebook. From a very messy notebook.
I had borrowed ECD’s notebook from a friend of mine, who happens to be a very bright student. But for a geek like her, one thing is very odd. She is very good at taking notes, but very bad in writing them. She rubs more than she writes. She moves her pen more to draw horizontal lines, than the English alphabets. She eventually solves every question correctly, but before doing that, she would make at least 2 calculation mistakes. Either by taking wrong values or by performing wrong operations. I seriously doubt, how could she score so much in final exams? (Bihar topper scam, anyone?).
Before writing this article, I had called her and asked my doubt. First, she started laughing. And said, “Can’t you simply copy the right answer and neglect the errors”.
 But when I pursued her, she said, “Look, it’s better to make mistakes. Coz when I study for exams, I come to know which mistakes I should not make in the exam. What should I avoid and what should I do. And it’s very fun to look at those mistakes. Right answers only please you, but your mistakes guide you in every scenario. And they also make you laugh by making you realise how silly you can be.”

How true she is, isn’t she? And isn’t this applicable to our lives as well?
We do remember the right choices that we had made in the past and are certainly proud of those, but do they make us laugh? No. They fill us with pride, with ego. But our mistakes, oh they are the best. They put a smile on our face. They bring our feet back to the ground. They make us laugh. They make us live.
I would always think that if I get a chance to go back in time and change an incident, what would it be? Would I change my accident? Or my failure at IIT-JEE? A walkout from college council? My first proposal? Or my only breakup?
I would always get confused. But now I am clear. I will not change anything (one obvious reason, which only Flash lovers will understand ;) ). Not a single damn thing. Coz if all these things had gone in a way which I had expected them to, would life be so beautiful? Would I meet such a lovely people? Would I have so much fun? I don't think so.

So that is what I think.
 Don’t try to make life perfect. It is not supposed to be.
Don’t try to change your past, you can’t do that. 
Don’t be ashamed of making mistakes. Rather, go ahead and make some more. 
Coz the right choices you make may help you to earn your millions, but the mistakes you make will certainly put a smile on your face. And a smile is worth zillions.

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