There are three types of people in this world – Risk seekers,
Risk averters and the neutral ones, I prefer the second one. Taking the safest
path was always my thing. Everyone knows that higher the risk, greater is the
return. But I used to believe in “higher the risk, greater is the fall.” I used to avoid all
those risks and be satiated with whatever little it gave me back.
No one can run away from taking risks all their life, me not
being an exception. A big decision came knocking on my door. Even if I was
afraid, I had to answer the call. One year ago, I was in a situation where
taking the risk was the best thing I have ever done in my life. I completed my
high school with great marks, but the thing that mattered the most was clearing
JEE-Advanced in which I failed miserably.
I
had not studied as hard as it takes to make my way through JEE-Advanced and
eventually I ‘succeeded in failing’. But I was able to excel in JEE-Main and
other competitive exams. I knew I had the potential to pull-off JEE-Advanced.
The dilemma before me was whether to join NIT as I was getting a good college,
or to prepare for one more year and reappear for the exam. Somewhere in my
heart I knew I couldn’t settle for anything less than an IIT. But the risk here
was, if I went for NIT then there was no more of IIT in this life and if I
waited for another year, what if the results were even worse and I couldn’t
even convert a decent engineering college and along with this wasting one full
year of my life.
At this point of my life, I decided to take a chance. I
declined to join NIT and took the risk of taking the exam again next year.
These 12 months were the scariest
for me. I was always worried that what if all my hard work gets flushed down
the gutter and this decision turns out to be the worst in my life. But my fear
was futile, I worked hard and it fetched me great results. I finally landed at
IIT Roorkee, one of the most prestigious institutions in India.
Today I know that if I had not taken that risk, I would have
been regretting it all my life. The only thing I lost was a year and had to
wait to experience the so called exciting college days.
This risk being a success changed something significant in
me. I am not afraid to take risks anymore. I now believe that one can make
a risk fruitful if worked hard. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO & founder of
Facebook and the inspiration for many once said – “The biggest risk is not
taking any risk….In a world that change really quickly, the only strategy that
is guaranteed to fail is not taking any risks”.
I would just like to suggest the readers that there is no
running away from risks. If
you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the
ordinary. The risk of a wrong decision is always preferable to the
terror of indecision. Any goal worth achieving involves an element of risk no
matter how much you try to avoid it.
Don’t listen to those who say “you are taking too big a
chance”. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely
be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don’t listen when the little voice of
fear inside you rears its ugly head and says, “They are smarter than you out
there. They’re more talented, taller, prettier, luckier, and they have connections.”
I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, with the
strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts and do not
make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll
be a person worthy of your own respect as well as others’.
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