75. A lesson from an IPS officer on success that you must not ignore. At least I didn’t.

A day ago I met an IPS officer. He is a good friend of mine. He is posted in Kerala and his name is Prateesh Kumar. He was here on a short visit to Mumbai so we decided to take a stroll around seaside just to remember the old times and talk about other stuffs of life. We decided to have lunch and dinner together and he was paying the money at every shop we went as I had not a single rupee in my pocket. I told him about my financial conditions which are not very bright and I told him that when you are in film line, nothing is certain and there are always good and bad phases that awaits you. You don’t get monthly cheques and there is no certainty from where your next cheque is coming from. He asked me whether he should loan me some money and I told him that I never borrow money from anyone. He understands my ego and self-esteem as we are childhood friends and our families are close together so he stopped insisting much. But he did ask me what were the problems I was facing and I told him about my struggles and how I made two films and none of them ever got a release, how I wrote a book and couldn’t sell much and how I don’t get much jobs as I lost several connections in past three years and how sometimes I don’t get assistant job because people say you shouldn’t assist as you have directed films. I told him it is not the money I am concerned about because I can earn money anytime I want as there are many other resources to earn money, it is the choice of life that is affecting me. It is the expectation of my parents, my expectations from myself, my over ambitious nature, it is these things that bother me otherwise there is nothing in this world that can stop me from doing anything that I want to do.

We did our engineering together and then I went to a software company to do a job and he went to pursue his dream of being in government service. Through CDS he joined Army but great as working in army is, he realized that this work was not for him and he decided to quit. It would be a big decision for anyone because it was a prestigious job and out of thousands of applicants only few get selected. But he had made up his mind. Now he does not have the job he got from campus placement and one thing he decided to do, army, he realized was not his calling so he came back to his home to prepare for UPSC exams. He told me that there was lots of negativity around him when he came back to his hometown. Relatives, friends, neighbors and even his own parents told him that it was a wrong decision to quit a job like this and he should reconsider it. There were lots of opinions and advice and pressure, it could have broken the spirit of anyone but he stick to his guts. Unlike me, who is a person who changes his opinion’s and beliefs from time to time and is a bit of pushover, my friend is much of an obstinate person and adamant decision taker. He told me that no matter what people said about him and his decisions, somehow he knew that he was going to get selected in IPS. He believed in himself and at that time he was the only one to believe in himself. He told me there was not a single doubt in his mind that he won’t be able to make it. He made it finally. He got a very good rank in UPSC and it was his mere second attempt. He finally joined IPS.

Now I have read thousands of books on motivation, success and positivity and every book, no matter what stories, theories or words they use, tell the same things. Once you decide what you want to do, then don’t let a single thought of doubt cross you mind. That single thought of doubt, that single negative thought will destroy everything inside you and no matter how much you try after that nothing will materialize. Doubts are the enemy and they ruin the intensity of one’s decision. The truth is no one knows whether the path they had chosen is right or wrong and there is yet no way to find whether what you have started will ever be successful or not but that should never stop anyone from taking their first step. Now what if he would have failed and never got selected in UPSC, you may ask me ‘then what’. He is a man of strong will power and any man of concrete and strong thoughts would have soon found another goal and moved over the past failures. It all comes back to taking a decision and backing it with full faith, that makes that decision come true. There is no failure in this world that can stop a powerful from attaining what he wants to attain.