The Key to Overcoming Difficulties in JEE and Life
Questioner: Namaste, Acharya Ji. My question was regarding a tendency that I've always had all my life. It was regarding quitting things when they get extremely tough.
Like, I'll give you a short example. Let's say when I was preparing for my JEE, there were questions that were kind of easy—like direct formula-based. There were questions that were of a medium level. And then, there were questions that were very tough, and they, like, you know, combined multiple concepts.
So I usually went with the easy questions and solved them. But when it came to the tougher questions, I quit.
How do I change this tendency? How do I address this tendency and get better?
Acharya Prashant: It’s about the self-concept that we carry. That self-concept is not innate but gets built over several years. If your self-concept tells you that you do not deserve to crack the toughest question, then you'll not put everything into cracking the toughest question. In fact, you will needlessly make any question the toughest one.
You have to tell yourself that you deserve to solve even the toughest problem, and then the tough problem is no longer all that tough. One has to love himself a bit more and say—yes, it's difficult, but for me, it's doable.
If situations, upbringing, media, influences, and education have all conditioned you into thinking that you must always stay one level below the best, then something very strange will happen. Even when the opportunity to be the best comes to you, you will miss out on that opportunity.
It happens a lot of times in sports. Great players belonging to the A league—you understand, the A league? Just one level below the topmost level, let's say the international level. Great players belonging to the A league perform magnificently. But when they finally get a chance at the highest level, they flop dismally. Why?
Something in them is constantly whispering—"You are great, but only at the penultimate level. This top level is not for you."
So, a batsman who has been performing greatly at the Ranji and the Duleep Trophy levels—he gets his test cap, and five consecutive times, he gets out to pretty harmless deliveries. Pretty harmless deliveries.
In the domestic circuit, he has been constantly dispatching similar deliveries to the boundaries. In a domestic match, if you give him a similar delivery, he will flick it to the boundary. But in an international match, a similar delivery—and he loses his wicket. Why?
Something in him tells him—"I don't belong to the topmost level." That has to be challenged.
Whosoever it is that told you that you are not good enough has to be rejected. And we all have influences in our life whose job has been to tell us that we are not good enough.
In matters of love, love itself is the qualification. No other qualification is needed. Nobody else is needed to tell you that you are good enough. If you love something, you are already good enough for it. Love is the qualification.
If you love mathematics, your love makes you good enough. You don’t require an external agency to come and certify how good you are. "I love it, and I'll keep having a go at it.
Getting it, huh?"
Tell yourself—"Yes, it's a tough problem, but I'm tougher!"
Baap kaun hai? Tu tough hai, Main tougher!
Questioner: Thank you, sir.
Questioner: Pranaam Acharya Ji. So you said that one should first stop and reflect on what he’s doing. Isn't that also a choice? Like, is it…
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, yeah, that's a choice. Everything is a choice. To be alive is to be responsible for choosing every moment. You cannot give up that responsibility. And those who do not take that responsibility—they become slaves. Slaves don’t have choices. In fact, that’s the very definition of slavery—"No, you will not have a choice anymore. Now, you're a slave."
Questioner: Can it be called love?
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, of course. How else will you choose? If you choose in compulsion, that is no choice at all. So, the only right basis of choice has to be love. But you cannot love without understanding. So, even before love, comes understanding.
If you love without understanding, then that’s just basic animalistic attraction. Even animals are attracted. But human beings love. And to love is to first of all understand. So, understanding has to be the basis of choice, and that requires constant attention.
You have to be present. From that comes choice.
