Paths are created by walking

Life is all about finding a way. It’s never easy, it doesn’t come with an instruction manual, there are no set paths, and paths are created by walking.

This is a small incident about finding a way around your circumstances. There are things you can’t change about yourself, your environment, your conditions. You need to accept those facts and find a way around them. You only know what’s good for you. This incident is about one of our employees who was preparing for the CA Final. I am not mentioning his name, as I have not taken his permission to use his name.

He was working with us as a final year article and was very good at all the practical work. He was thorough in his approach, had an analytical view of everything he did, and was very curious about anything he did.

Despite being a bright student, he was not able to clear the CA final exam for the last several attempts, three attempts. This was not a problem with his knowledge or ability, there was something else wrong. With every attempt, he was losing more confidence. The marks he was getting in these attempts were also low, not that he was very close to passing marks. I was surprised how someone so good at work, can get so low marks.

One day I called him and asked what the was problem. He told me that he has a problem with concentration. I didn’t get it, I asked what is the exact problem. He told me that if he studies something for long time or if he tries to concentrate or focus on something, he will get a terrrible headache. He will get blurred vision and will feel as if his mind has stopped working. So problem was not that he was not capable or he was not willing to put in hard work, the problem was that his body was not allowing him to.

This was a very strange problem, how could he clear the exam if he is not able to do proper studies or revisions? Seemed it was something that was not under his control.

I told him I am not sure what can you do about it, you have a one limitation which is not under your control. Now you have three options, first, accept it as failure and quit, which means who accepts defeat, two, keep fighting with it and try to work hard, someday you may succeed, third, build a way around it, think about how can you defeat it smartly

I told him about the one-way study I knew from one of my friends. You can record notes in your voice, and audio notes at the time of the first study, and next time you can listen to it for revision. It’s that simple… see if that works for you, you will get a chance to revise without a problem of focus. This was one of many other advice I gave to him. But this proved to be useful for him, he implemented it religiously.

And the result was ‘All India Rank in CA Finals’

From four times failure to remarkable success and all credit goes to his dedication and hard work.

This is a true story of inspiration for anyone struggling to clear CA exams or any other exams. This is a perfect example of creating new paths and finding non-traditional solutions to unique. If you are also stuck in an unending circle of failure and existing hard work is not working. Think deeply about what is going wrong for you and instead of working hard on the same method, think about changing the method and finding a unique solution.

You need to find your unique solution, sometimes working hard is a solution and sometimes working smart…. You cannot walk on others’ paths, you need to create your path….. Paths are created by walking….

[I originally wrote this post 10 years back, reproducing it here]