Feeble Theory.

Feeble Theory !!!

My heading might have baffled you, as it sounds too heavy and as if I am going to make you read something about astro-physics or rocket science. Here I want you to just give me 10 minutes of your life to explain why I have mentioned a heading that has no meaning, and yet I think  it will add meaning to your life.See, you might have heard a million times that it's not okay to quit but sometimes quitting is a better option, because it will make you introspect what exactly is wrong or erroneous.

I will give you a small anecdote that might ease up things right here.

I belong to a place called Cuttack which was the old capital of Odisha. Like many others, I also had the dream to represent India in cricket. I started playing cricket at a very young age and trust me I was quite good at it. Seeing my gameplay my dad sent me for the Cricket coaching at a very early age. Back then Cuttack used to be the sporting capital of Odisha. Many prestigious leagues were played during those days. I was a KV student and KV also had a very good sporting culture. Seeing my play, my KV coach had asked me to play for the school team. Getting this opportunity from a stalwart who represented Odisha in Ranji, I instantly said yes. I was 14 back then and was the youngest player to play under-19 for KV. He was preparing the team for the inter-school tournament which was the most reputed tournament where almost 40 odd schools participated. There were schools like Stewart, DAV, Ravenshaw, SCB who have dominated the league and we were to play against them. The practice started 3 months prior to the tournament and trust me those sessions were too hectic for a 14-year kid. Every morning I used to wake up at 5.30 am and hurry up to the practice with my BSA SLR cycle with a 20 kg cricket kit bag in it. It was kind of frantic for me as I had mixed emotions. I hated to wake up early in the morning but at the same time, I get the perk to not attend the morning assembly which I hated even more.

My dad was always a fan of my game, he used to come and see every match of mine. He used to take me to every match that I was supposed to play in his Bajaj Super scooter. Keeping his scooter on the main stand, he used to sit on it and watch the whole match and in the end, he used to tell me where I used to go wrong. The inter-school tournament arrived. We were supposed to play 10 league matches.

Now I am going to tell you one of the most difficult phases of my life. I played 8 out of those 10 matches and I had scored a single-digit score in every match I played. I was dejected and depressed. The coach was forced to bench me for the semi-final and final match. I used to cry in the nook of the pavilion because of my performance. I never felt so low in my life until that point. I could see kids who were less technically sound than me scoring good runs. Moreover, I was not able to face my dad's face when I was not able to score. We lost the finals and we came back to our school. My coach took a post-match session and in that session, he gave me an earful. He showed me all the lacunas I had, the mistakes I had committed. I was so much disheartened that I kind of lost my appetite for the next couple of days. I used to cry every night because of the rant that I received. My friends started mocking me. It hit me so hard that I used to hide during every game period. After reading this you might be thinking this isn't that tough or not that consequential that I had to go through dismay. Yes, you might be correct but this was going through a child who was only 14 years old and these emotions were also hefty for him. I almost stopped playing for 3-4 months. My club coach and friends used to call me to play but I used to tremble when I think of batting. It was almost over for me. I had quit.

Meanwhile, my dad came to know about my mental health, and one day he asked me out for a ride in his old scooter. He took me to a ground where almost 100 kids were playing. He asked me "Do you see these kids playing??"

I said - Yes.

Dad - Do you think they will ever make it to bigger forums??

Me- I don't know, perhaps.

Dad - They won't make it.

Me - Why do you think so??

Dad - They have talent, they are hardworking but the only thing they are lacking is they don't have that intent or passion to make it big. They are playing just for the sake of playing.

He then asked me one more question.

Dad- Do you know what these bunch of kids have but you don't ???

Me - No !!!

Dad- They don't have the fear of losing. They are not even concerned if they fail. They enjoy every moment they spend in the crease.

After that, he started narrating a story about World War 2 where the mighty Hitler ( Germans) lost to the Western Allies and it was unexpected for everyone. No one had ever thought that the Germans will be defeated but they lost. I got confused and asked why you are telling me this. He smirked and said, "there are times when you will encounter failures and these failures will be so callous that they won't let you stand and make you brawny enough to face them again. In simpler terms, sometimes it so happens that when a person is at his lowest point and is already racked with failures, thinking not to go through the same pain again, he simply makes his mind go numb and starts fighting, giving his all in it as if he has nothing to lose. The Western allies had gone through the same thing that day. They knew they can't outmatch the Germans but still, they had nothing to lose, they fought and won out of nowhere. If they would have thought about the consequence then they would have never won WW2. "

The story itself left a mark on me. From my personal experience, I had gathered that one's performance and his chances of succeeding proportionately decrease with his declining mental state (or we can say declining motivation). But here my father was telling me this story which roughly says that there comes the lowest of points, where one feels he got nothing more to lose and from that knee-jerk moment both your motivation and your performance begin an upward trend. The chances of winning become more and have nothing to lose.

That day I couldn't sleep at night and all night I tried to figure out what went wrong with me. I scored tons of run in my club matches but couldn't score any here. I guess I was bowed down by my own expectations. The fact that I wanted to leave an impression on the crowd had dominated my mindset and easily the same crowd with their constant cheering and sledging steered my batting style, sometimes forcing me to play ruthless shots and other times forcing me to play over-defensive shots.

Regarding what my father said, I couldn't make up my mind if this was the lowest of points my life but I couldn't afford to wait for it in order for the knee-jerk movement happening in my life. I had to test my father's theory and even though it's not, treat this point as the lowest of all points in my life. The next day I woke up very early, cycled my way to the club, and asked my coach that from now I will play with my seniors. Yes, I had made a mind to level up. One of the other reasons for my ineffectualness was my fear of playing 18-year-old bowlers. I wanted to erase that from my psyche too. My coach was surprised to see me and moreover that he didn't expect that I will be saying this to him after taking a 3-4 month break.

Next year our school coach took me again in the team. My school seniors were browbeating me because of my last year's performance. I didn't utter a single word. The tournament ended, we were champions and guess what I was the leading scorer of my team with 4 half-centuries in my pocket. I got selected for the state team because of my performance just because I had taken a leap of faith and that knee-jerk moment did come in my story.

I will end this story with my dad's quote which he termed as feeble theory  "Fortune deserts them who don't have the courage to take a leap of faith. Don't complain about the fortune if you don't have the audacity to fight for your dream."

In life, you might come through so many situations where you don't have any idea that how to overcome them. The only thing you can do is to quit it momentarily, keep calm and introspect where you went wrong. When you have your reasons to hustle for, take a leap of faith and keep hustling, trust me the outcome you will cherish for your entire life.

- unsatisfied_techie