Reflections...
Alok Yadav
Facilitator & Coach | Human-Centric System Design | Driving Long-Term Solutions with Design Thinking, Quality & Project Management | Transformative Leadership | XLRI—EDPHRM | IITK—Design Management
The year 2008, Bright Sunny Day, Morning Alarm,8:30 AM Class, hush-hush Breakfast, cycles moving from the hostel to Academic block, anxiety to be late in class & more importantly it was all boiling down to assignment submission of talking about a book as a critic (which you like most).
The clock was ticking and I got my turn ..as I started narrating my viewpoint, a heavy voice from Prof interrupted, "Gentleman, you can't say a good thing about this book" It was quite an experience to hold yourself as you got inspired by that book.
As I was reminding myself that "Try Again", it came out as I was falling flat again on my efforts. Prof told me to take my seat and went to the board sharing the intent of this exercise.
And those words were Gold as he explained since childhood we have been trained to accept Book as Persona which cant be wrong.
"It's nothing but a documented version of the Author's viewpoint".
You as an Individual can accept, reject or validate your thought process but authority lies with YOU as a reader."
It was the AHA Moment of Life, It has not been the same after those words and I started looking at Books with an entirely new lens. Earlier I used to purchase books on face value and possibly ratings & it got completely replaced by the habit of knowing the intent and perspective of the Author, keeping the right of accepting it with the reader & when I find myself with a book on a couch, I just smile and take it as my Fellow Traveller.
Accenture Strategy & Consulting | ex-TCS, Mahindra, Tata Motors, IOCL | IIT BHU | CFA L3 Candidate
3 年Thanks for sharing it. I firmly believe that ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’. It’s a eureka moment for me if I could have even a single take-away from a book I read. From the kitty of very less no of books I have read, believe me I can not name a single book which I rejected with no new learning. Just my perspective !
Electrical & Control Systems| Functional Safety | Advance Engineering
3 年Yes.. books except fact base books are thoughts and experience of an author. My view is that we should not just accept or reject but first we must VALIDATE and then decide to accept or reject.