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THIRAN THOUGHTS

Vol 1, April, 2013, Manikandan Mohan, Class of 2009

LIFE IS A RAT RACE

OUR THOUGHTS
CREATE OUR
WORLD

Failing to do what we
love

Defining your own


success

Stop whining about


becoming an Engineer

Managing time

Discussing with right


people

Never give up

Thinking about the 3 Fs

Teaching others

A lot of us think whether we are doing the right thing in life, by studying
engineering, and pursuing a job that pays well. Are you one of those who sits
outside your hostel/house and think about what you have become, whether
you are happy? This one is for you.
Life is a rat race. A lot of us ran, are running, or will run. We fail to do what
we love. Stepping back a bit more, we don't even know what we love because
our parents are worried about other 'rats' in the rat race and want their rat to
race ahead and finish the race first. 90% of time, it takes years to let your
parents know you won the race and you want to move on to another race or
just let them know you are not a rat at all. I do not blame parents for this at
all, it is just how they should be thinking about their children. The blame is
on the student to realize late that he is not part of that race, and by the time
he realizes that, he cannot pull out of the race because other rats would think
he is crap and he spends rest of life thinking about the current race is he is
running on and what other rats around him are thinking. Are you a rat?

DEFINING YOUR SUCCESS


There are different goal posts around you and you can manage to score a goal
in different ways - with ease, with your wrong foot, with a header or with a
bicycle kick fracturing your elbow in the process but still score a goal. All this,
assumes the fact that the goal post was reachable. So Success = Scoring scoreable goals on reachable goal posts. Different people define success in a
different way. Some based on money, some based on knowledge and some
based on happiness and serenity. How do you define yours?

THINKING ABOUT WHY YOU DID ENGINEERING?


We are Engineers and since we had already signed up for that, we have to think about how our passion/love can be
incorporated into engineering. Last couple of years, my love was Cognitive Psychology which I used very well for my
graduate research and currently, my new found love is Sound designing and I am reading about how it is used for
engineering (Did you know Sound design is starting to become quite famous in Bio-engineering?). At some point in life,
every person starts getting motivation from everything, for some its quite early and for some its late. If you have such a
liking for an area, dont let anyone/anything stop you. Just go for it, find similar people with same interest and form
interest groups inside college. Current trend in engineering is about using analogies from different areas in your field and
coming up with novel ideas. Did you already find people that match your interest, and talk to them?

Even your close friend can easily demotivate you and thrash
everything you have in mind, set your boat on fire and push you aside.

TALK TO THE RIGHT GUY


Less people to motivate and more people to 'kalaai' your passion. I had always wanted to contribute something to
agriculture/cattle farming and when I wanted some input from my very good trustworthy friends, the reply I got was "yenda unaku idhellam.. " or "enna da nethiku Annamalai padam pathiya?". Even your close friends can easily demotivate
you and thrash everything you have in mind, set your boat on fire and push you aside. Students need to build that strong
feeling to take bad criticisms in a right way and extracting useful information from it. If it were you, would you go back to
room and watch Annamalai movie to know what made him say so?

Your work defines who you are, not your dreams.


MANAGING TIME
There are two kinds of people - people who are inefficient and spend 15 hours in office per day doing less work and people
who are efficient and finish their job in 7 hours and do 1 hour of something they love. Time management is something that
needs to be taught. If you fail to do what you dream, it will remain a dream. Your work defines who you are, not your
dreams. Did you finish doing the last thing you dreamt about?

THE 3 FS
There are 3 Fs in life that could decide what you become in life.

#1 Family: There is always pressure from family and relative who talk more about your career and life than you do. Most
of us work to satisfy their expectations and thereby in the journey, lose focus on your goal (Remember the rat race?). Did
you ever try to talk to your life partner or your parents to make your dream, theirs too? Success in persuading them means
you can persuade the whole world.
#2 Friends: Partnering with the right people is very important. As said before, its never a good idea to discuss your idea
with random friends. Anyone can demotivate, anyone can steal. If partnering with a friend for business, do a business
evaluation on him and have everything on papers. You never know.
#3 Flat: Is buying a flat your life goal? Do you want want to loan an apartment for 50-60 Lakhs and spend rest of your
young age paying back its interest? Do you want to get that financial burden bang your head everytime you think about
achieving your dream of creating a start-up company? Think. (Inspired from a recent article that was shared in Thirans
email chain)
A lot questions to answer.
(Thoughts, rants, opinions and feedbacks, please send to maniferrari@gmail.com)

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