Learn to Forget

Yesterday Chandrika and I won First place in the anagram contest held by EMF (elctro motive force ) club in Infineon.Yay!!! Its been helluva long time since I have competed in any event, let alone actually winning something.

Competition is in todays world a part of everyones life, we are dead if we forget to compete in the a proverbial rat race.Or stated in an optimistic way, competitions and contests keep us alive !! This fact is sometimes easy to forget, especially for those people who are in a relatively stable job, whose basic necessities in life are met. These are the people who need to be all the more careful about what awaits them in the future. Its not like they dont have goals or passions in life. They have loads of aspirations, but what they lack is the COURAGE or GUTS to carry out their ideas. Getting out of the comfort zone which they build around themselves can be very painful, and many of them succumb to the withdrawal symptoms and relinquish their dreams. They are the people who are prisoners of their past successes.

In todays information age past success or experience is sometimes the most worthless quality you could possess. Nowadays, a persons success is measured by his adaptability or response to situations he could never fathom. When I look back at the last 3-4 years of my life most of my conjectures and theories about my future were not to happen. My life has been a roller coaster ride with joys and successes, as well as frustrations and failures. But these successes and failures always amaze me, I never seem to have a clue about either !

So I'm now trying to adopt a new way of looking at things, after being mesmerized by CK Prahalad and Gary Hamels signature book - Competing for the future. Heres the funda :

Its not about learning baby,
its about forgetting !
You have experience, maybe
but do you have innocence ??

So high and mighty yesterday you were,
that you forgot you might have to compete tomorrow.
Blunt are your arrows, broken is your bow,
How the hell will you compete,
with those kids with AK 47's ??

Forget your arrows,give up your bow
Practice using the gun,without any ego.

If the above lines are a poem ,I'll be dammed
but you will never get so much wisdom elsewhere,together crammed.