When we are pushed to the wall, all of us behave in different manners. How we would behave depends on many factors. But collectively, I think it is the sum total of all our efforts before that point of time. I had had one such situation and even now I reflect on it sometimes on how it unfolded.
I was not great in finance. Though I loved maths since childhood and a thumb rule says guys who like maths should take up finance in MBA, the rule didn’t apply to me. A great contribution also came from one of our very popular professors who taught cost accounting, the first finance subject for us, in such a pathetic way that many of us got serious disillusion from finance, for our life. The episode which I am recollecting happened in the second trimester and the subject was financial accounting.
The professor was an accountant. His classes fell at 8.15 in the morning. Often I would be among one of the first students to check in. By the time class got over and it was time for attendance, almost whole of the class would be present. He was a gentleman and only smiled at such acts of smartness. I didn’t like the subject much, but I loved the way he delivered his lectures. Also, I loved the practical significance of whole of the finance he was teaching. Now trimester was about to end and it was exam time. I was confident of doing badly in the written exams, so I was staking high on the internals. For internal assessment, his proposal was unique – it would be eloquence on random subject related topic that he would throw at us. Some of us were scared and some happy. I was happy, thinking that it would be easier to speak about a topic than to do complex financial calculations for him.
Some guys spoke very well while many spoke inadequately short. Some very good students were found to be not good orators, while some who didn’t understand the subject but had memorized things, performed well. When someone was confused, we helped him/her with hints and hand gestures from the audiences. The session was going on well.
I got a topic to speak on, which was related to corporate credit valuation. There were five elements that he had taught us. I was confident and started writing the five elements one by one. But when I reached the third point, my mind became blank. I had forgotten the third point. I stopped and tried to recollect it for a moment. I couldn’t get it. I turned back and looked at the class. I expected someone to help me. Even a murmur would have helped, or they could have written the word on their notebook and raised it for me to take a peek :) But every face was blank. I was shocked. Some inconvenient moments passed. I was hurt that my class didn’t help me. Perhaps they were in a state of inertia. But the feelings of hurt suddenly made me remember the point in a flash. I wrote the missing point on the board, and resumed my speech. And then I went on and on.
I spoke for about 40 minutes, perhaps the highest in the class. While speaking, my mind just recollected the way our professor used to stand and speak every morning, in front of a largely vacant class room. My speech was a huge success and everyone appreciated it. But later on, I understood everything differently. Since I had goofed up in the beginning and then I was shaken by my friends, I took a kind of revenge on the world by putting more efforts in my speech. I could have settled to stop my speech short, but I was kind of making up for the loss. And my speech helped me immensely. As I had guessed, I didn’t do well in the written exams. But since I had got high marks in the internal assessment, I could clear the paper comfortably.
The episode gave me a glimpse of how we perform better in difficult situations. When we are pushed to the walls and have no one to support us, the best within us comes out to help us survive. The survival instinct propels every fabric of our efforts to put up a brave face to the opposition. Also, a feeling of hurt can do miracle in adverse situations. This is how a lot of heroes make stunning ‘come back’, be it in movies or in real life.
I think in such situations, right attitude is very important. We should accept the adverse and hostile situation as a challenge and then raise our limits to give it a tough fight. I am sure all of us can do it.
- Rahul
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