For the Class of 2020
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For the Class of 2020

This was your final year. May be you got the best job in campus. Or may be you barely got a job. And both are now at risk. Or you got entry into a top US university for masters. And now you are not sure if the semester will even start this year.

After adults telling you for so many years: get good marks in 10th, in 12th, get to a good college finally when you were about to graduate this has hit. Finally when you were about to get what you had waited for so many years in life: earning money, financial independence, freedom from parents, it seems like that life has snatched that away from you. 

For the next few years the economy will grow slowly. The increments for couple of years will be a little less. And you feel uncertain. May be even angry at why did this have to happen in the year when you were to graduate. Could have happened last year or waited till an year after. Why now? Why me? What will happen?

Let me tell you a story. This is the story of every person who graduated from college and then went on to do a job, higher education, then got married and has had kids. When she comes back home after work, when she meets her college friends once every six months: they talk about the good old college days. The days without worries, the days without stress, the days filled with hope and with wonder at the possibilities ahead. They talk about what they could have done when they were young. They talk about the days spent with each other. The days spent with friends.

That is your silver lining.

Because when you are 40 you will realize it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you became vice president at the age of 33 or 35. Whether you completed your PhD in 4 years or 5. It is possible that you will be 40 and will work for a start-up run by a 25 year old.The colleagues you are working with might be younger than you by a few years or older. It doesn't matter. 

The takeaway is that all of you are in the same boat of life where a few years here and there just don't matter at all in the long run.

But in the short run this gives you opportunities. 57% of the Fortune 500 companies were started in recession or bear markets. Some of the best brands you know were built in recession. Apple, Disney, Microsoft, IBM, GE among them. 

After I got my job, I often thought back on what more I would have done if I could rewind back to college days. How I would use the college vacations differently, spend more time with parents, go on a climbing trip and what not. As a silver lining you have that opportunity now. You can pick up a new skill. Once the lock-down is over you can travel locally if your job joining is still a few months away. If you haven't gotten a job yet, you have these few months to pick up a skill which will be valuable in the 'new world'. You could use this time to think of starting an idea that you have been passionate about but didn't venture because you got a good job. 

Lot's of TED talks, research articles mention that the key to living a happy life lies in 4 things: being healthy, having good relationships, doing what you are good at and having gratitude for what you have.

So use this time that you have now to get a little fitter. Spend this time with your parents and friends because you don't know when you will get it back again. And hopefully spend this time in pursuing something that you won't be able to do later in life. Think about the situation you are in and how lucky you are. Having almost completed education you are already in the fortunate few in this world. If you can do these things today you can then also look back on these times more positively when you are 40, sitting with friends over beer chatting how because of the slowdown you ended up pursuing something that you loved and were good at. And thanking how you got a few months extra to spend with each other before life took over.

In the way of the world a few years here and there don't matter. What matters is what you do with the time that you have now. And do you use it to do something that you won't be able to ever do later. 

I hope you grab it. 


cheers,

Harpreet Grover (also known as Happy Singh among friends)

Entrepreneur (Co-founder, CoCubes)

IIT-B, Batch of 2005

Priya Mishra

Public Speaker| Global B2B Conference Organizer of our flagship event | Management Consultant | Corporate Strategy | Solution Provider | Business Process Enthusiast

2 年

Harpreet, thanks for sharing!

回复
Amber Nigam

Founding CEO @basys.ai | Harvard | 40u40 | TEDx Speaker | Op-Ed Contributor | Building the Gen AI Operating System for Healthcare

4 年

Quite relatable. I am grateful for having had an opportunity to pursue my interest and in the process pick up one of my current essential skills while I was under a mini-lockdown after a small accident. It gave me two months of hard thinking, some studying and a little bit of persistence after the initial burst to follow something I really wanted to. Of course, there are so many things I could now think of that I could've done differently, but, all in all, I am grateful for that time and I am grateful for 'now', which gives us that extra time for thinking something that we wouldn't otherwise.

Srinivas Rao Bhairy

Professional Career Coach and Counselor, Communication Coach, Performance and Life Coach, Emotional Intelligence Trainer, Psychometric Test Analyst, Group Process Facilitator

4 年

Spot On....Very well written ..A must read article for every graduate of class 2020.

回复
Shamshad Alam

PV Insight Inc. || Senior Electrical Design Engineer || Solar & BESS Engineering

4 年

Terrific thoughts!

回复
Geeta Harisinganey

Founder and Head of Curriculum at Sweven Montessori

4 年

Harpreet Singh Grover?well said. Sometimes freting over what is not in our control we tend to loose the 'NOW' in which so many new stories can be spun, memories can be built, so many discoveries can be made and skills can be developed. Yes the times are difficult and what you are saying can be written off as the hind sight of somebody already there but most of us forget that we are all going to get there someday and think in hind sight how we lost the NOW. A timely message for all the 2020, I know a few of them who are stressing...?

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