What are the odds?

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“My faith is in people, I guess. Individuals. And I’m happy to say for the most part, they haven’t let me down.”

After dropping his shield in the bittersweet climax of Captain America – Civil War, Cap wielded a pen. The lines above were a part of his letter to Tony Stark. Although I have always been a fan of the Iron Man, these words by Cap certainly struck a chord.

Let me ask you a question. How do you predict whether something is going to work out or not?

Allow me to guess. You'll look at the odds.

India vs Afghanistan 1st Test. Tomorrow 9:30 AM. My bet is on India.
I look at the odds too!

But why did I choose India? (and I’m sure almost all of you did)

A few decades ago, Indian team wasn’t the same in terms of mettle, the individuals changed and so did the odds.When the results are based on Individuals, the odds are in a causal relationship with them. 

We often look at the world around us and come to collective conclusions. To an extent we might be right but while doing this we ignore the individualities of people.
Recently this happened with me,

“Hey man, do you drink?”
“No, I don’t”, I said.
“You’ve done engineering, right?”
“Yeah”
“Strange”

Actually correlating engineering and drinking was strange.

My point is, I am different. And so are you. It doesn't matter if we share the same education, caste or interests, we all are different.

The Guinness world record for the longest accurate shot in archery is held by Matt Stutzman, a person who was born without arms. In an interview, he said -

“I see myself as just an able-bodied person … I decided that since [my arms] weren’t going to grow back, I was just going to go forward with everything and not let anything get in my way or stop me from my goals.”



Well, who would’ve even advised him to choose archery in the first place. My perception was that a person without arms is unsuitable for archery.

This weekend a colleague from work paid a visit to me. Someone who is a senior but promptly replies to mails and texts and doesn’t break a sweat at work. He is hearing and speech impaired but he lives as normally as any of us do or probably better than us. I guess, it doesn’t always take a Matt Stutzman to go against the odds.

My life experiences have taught me that it’s just our belief in ourselves and the efforts that we put in that decide where we’ll go. Not the past! Not the present! Not the odds!  And if you don’t believe my words, look what Mr. Will Smith has to say -

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. Alright? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do something’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something’, go get it.”
                               -  Will Smith (The Pursuit Of Happyness)

Stop focusing on what others tell you. I am not saying what we are being told by others is wrong. What they tell us is what they think is right. But what they think is right may not always be right.

Right?

Hopefully, I’ve ended on the right note! :p



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