Saturday morning rung in with urgent calls shrieking, “It’s out”. Heartbeats sank and sored as the page loaded, digested the roll number and spewed out your result – for you, your parents, your siblings, your relatives, your friends, your teachers… And just about the whole wide world.
Oh, board results are scary, because everyone who is anyone in your life wants to know “Result kaisa aya?” and also (secretly) judge you for it for the rest of your life. Or, at least that’s what you might be thinking right now. Well, let me correct you right there – nobody cares.
Except maybe your parents, who are always worried about you anyway.
You may feel that nobody’s gonna forget how well you scored or how poor or average your marks are… But they ARE going to forget the minute after you tell them. They’ve got too much going on in their own lives to worry about what is going to happen to you after this.
Except maybe if you’re the CBSE topper. In which case, everyone’s going to treat you as the most intelligent person of your generation for the rest of your life.
I am not saying your marks don’t matter, because they do. They reflect how well you prepared for those five subjects, and how well you attempted questions that your teachers taught you over and over for a year, and they help determine which college you get admission into. But other than that, they hardly become the standard for deciding what path your life takes. And even if someone around you tries to treat your result as a yardstick and compare you with others – you’ve got to know better than to pay them a moment’s attention.
I know your friends who’ve scored well might be putting up statuses and basking in the first big achievement of their lives – for a good board result is a proud moment – but you’ve got to know that big moments are going to keep rolling in your life from this time on, and that’s just what adult life is all about.
You’re gonna apply for colleges, sit for entrances, clear interviews, take some more exams in college, face a few more heartbreaks, work hard for hefty pay packages, work some more for promotions and almost give up when you’re fighting for the love of your life. And life’s gonna continue screwing you – but right when it’s trying to push you down lies your chance to prove yourself to whoever you want to. If there’s one thing your life will never lack – it’s chances.
So don’t feel gloomy if you didn’t score as much as you set targets for. Or enough to get into the college you dreamt of. For life does does have a plan for you, even if it doesn’t make sense right now. Your only job is to keep giving it your best and keep trying to come out the winner. And on days when you fail – DO remember that this is your chance to prove yourself all over again.
People will tell you that your life is a fight, that it is a race – and they may be right even, I don’t know… I am only a few years older than you. But what I do know is that you can’t let anyone else set the pace of your journey, or even the direction you want to take. That’s entirely your choice, and whichever path you may chose to take, there’s gonna be struggle, there’s gonna be victory and you’re going to have fun. Just don’t give up. Just don’t quit. You’re stronger than this.
Just like Vir Das here says, you’re awesome already – and that’s all the result that matters.
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