Have the guts to question everything || Acharya Prashant, at Mithibai College, Mumbai (2022)

Questioner (Q): Sir, my question to you is, from a student's perspective, how do you think we should balance our social life with our academic life?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Have people in your social life who do not take you away from your academic life. What happens is that there is your academic life, and it is very separated from your social life. Why can't your social life become a shadow of your academic life or vice versa? What I am talking of is a "unification." There is usually a contrast, a separation.

The friends that we have, when it comes to studies, are not the same ones we have when it comes to enjoyment. Am I right? One set of study buddies and another set of fun buddies. That separation is not something great. Find out a way where the two can be made one. What do you have in academic life? Something that gives knowledge to you — there are books, there are classes, there are schedules, and there are examinations, there must be some laboratories. All these things involve interactions. Do they not?

You cannot be in a lab all alone, and when you are in a classroom, obviously, you are surrounded by so many people and friends. So, why can't the academic environment itself become your social environment or, at least, drive your social environment? Why do I need to say that my social life involves the ones I care for, whereas my academic life involves the ones I am with just because of chance or helplessness?

If you can integrate these two — your academic and your social life, broadly speaking, or your professional and your personal life — you will find that you are in a blissful space. Going ahead, that is the question that will bother you: “How to balance personal with professional life?” And the answer is: There is no need to balance; there is a need to integrate.