Initiate, Experiment, Iterate
Hi Everyone!
I hope you all are having a good time at IITK. Even if you are not having a good time, no problem, things will be better soon. Mark my words 🙂
So, as I leave the campus after four great years of my life, I would like to share some crucial life learning that I got over these four years, which I feel may be helpful to you.
Here I am not sharing my entire professional, academic and social life. You can easily glimpse it on different media platforms and archived articles by different student and institute bodies at IITK. Besides, it’s not feasible to write down everything out here. Maybe one-to-one interaction is more suitable.
My primary focus here would be on some thoughts, crucial practices, and questions you should ask yourself often as you sail through your journey at IITK. These components form part of my thought framework, which I rigorously applied whenever I was in doubt or when I had to make a consequential decision.
You can practically apply this to any situation or problem you face. It has worked quite well for me. I hope it helps you as well. Although, I would suggest you all build your framework questions and refine them with every failure, success, and unique experience you get along your way.
Let’s begin! I would list out five components here and leave some parts of them open-ended. You can think over and fill them up on your own, based on your life experiences till now.
What do you like? Make categories, and list them out.
What do you want from your life? Maybe you don’t have an answer now, but keep thinking. What are your superpowers and privileges? Everybody has some of these. Identify!
Are your current actions taking you towards or away from what you want?
What are your constraints? Maybe your CPI, family conditions, or anything else. Think!
Most of us are quite hesitant in our behaviour when we enter the campus. I believe it’s the system’s fault. We, as students, are rarely encouraged to ask questions or ask anything from anyone in general.
But from my personal and my peers’ experiences, the habit and courage to ask, what you want to ask and from the person you want to ask, is something that has exponential returns. It can disproportionately enhance your chances of success in any field you aspire for.
On the other side, your ego pacifies you, that you can do things on your own. Maybe you can, but the reality is that it is practically much more difficult to discover things on your own. It is much easier to ask. So do reach out whenever you genuinely need anything. Never hesitate to ask for help.
One truth you all need to accept is that life is unfair! We all are born under different circumstances, and we all have a different past, which decides our present and our future opportunities to some extent.
But we all aspire for success like anybody else, disregarding the fact that we have different superpowers, privileges, and backgrounds. The only thing that can give you a considerable shift is a calculated risk!
Never take a risk with a downside that considerably harms your health, career, and your most important relationships. But if the downside is quite bearable, do go for it. In the present world, where things change so rapidly, the only strategy bound to fail is not taking any risks. So do take risks, bet on yourself, or lose your chance.
From my personal experience, 80-90% of all worries which I had never actually happened. ML and AI have advanced, but the world is still highly unpredictable!
Whenever in doubt about any crucial decision where you have to make choices, ask the following questions:
What am I optimizing for?
Is the choice a need or a want? There is a difference.
How will this decision matter to me in the next 5-10 years?
Will I regret not going for any of the options in the next 5-10 years?
Is the choice a short-term instant gratification or a long-term beneficial sacrifice?
There can be many more follow-up questions as well that you may add. The main crux is to try to think long-term. We highly underestimate the power of today’s decisions on our future.
Now the last and final big question to ask yourself:
Are you living your life the way you wanted to live? Or it’s the checkmarks of the society and your peer group which you are fulfilling to gain their acceptance?
It’s hard even to realize that you are not living your own life, and it’s even harder to begin living your own life. You may have to start things again, lose friends, make new connections, and whatnot. But the final reward is even more pleasant than the pain of all the suffering you will go through. Finally, you may not need an escape because you will be in love with your life. You will be in charge of every moment of your life. It’s totally up to you!
Optimize yourself every day. Academics, career, CPI, people, society, everything is essential, but not at the cost of your true well-being and happiness. Nothing will be worth it if you are not happy. Also, remember that you will never get everything in life. For every choice you make to have something, you also lose something. So next time, whenever you feel left out, try having a JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) instead of FOMO (you know the full form).
I hope thinking about these questions helped you get a better position and hold on to your life. All I would say is that it’s the best time for you to do experiments in your life. It’s totally fine even if you fail. Because by the time you fail, you would have already learned a lot more than those who did not dare to try! It’s your life, explore it, design it and start living it out on your terms.
Finally, I would like to say that here at IITK, you have got one of the most precious slots of time to explore, experiment, and learn about your life. So, do use it efficiently. Believe in yourself because nobody else is going to do that for you. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Everything else is secondary.
With lots and lots of love and care!
Stay happy and get the most out of your journey at IITK 🙂
Yash Vardhan Raizada
Written by: Yash Vardhan Raizada
Edited by: Aniruddh Pramod, Bhavya Sikarwar
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