She heaved a sigh of relief and plonked down on her bed. She had never been the gregarious human. As she blew the candles on her birthday cake, the only wish she could possibly think of was not being surrounded by so many people. When would her best friends stop throwing her these annual surprise parties? She failed to understand.

One more year the Earth revolved around the Sun since you existed on this planet, she told herself. 26 revolutions, 26 years! The quarter life crisis had not yet hit her. She lay on her back and stared at the glow in the dark stars and planets on her ceiling. They always had a hypnotic effect on her, taking her back into time and reminiscing.

She had been extremely lucky from the very beginning, as far back as when she had just begun to read. Luck was her plus one. She was fortunate enough to learn from the very best.

Her methods of learning though were always seen with questionable eyes. The questionable eyes, never deterred her from her believes and never stopped her from taking on the impossible. At 26, she was doing exceptionally well for herself at the professional and personal front. But the questionable eyes persisted, since success was not proof or reason enough to deviate from the mundane norms of society.

She swore by experiential learning. She defined her own curriculum. She chose her own professors. She believed that the knowledge you could assimilate from places and its people were unequaled; even if she had to cross the seven seas for the same.

She had started her journey from the City of Dreams, Mumbai and eventually imbibed its spirit into every cell of her being before she set out to New York to understand what living the American Dream meant. From the Land of the Rising Sun which lead her to understand the worth of not only rising from the ashes but to be in a state of continual flux and development. From China she learnt what diplomacy was through the concept of harmony, she learnt the what and how behind mass production. From Greece, the home of Socrates, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, all the way to South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, home of the tribes and diverse ethnic groups.

The history of these places, the deep rooted culture and the voice of its people were etched onto her mind until the end of time. These experiences had made her worldly.

As luck was her plus one, she had the fortune of learning one on one, what it meant to be crazy enough to want to change the world, from Steve Jobs himself. She had had the privilege to learn about how early in life Bill Gates had laid the foundation for what Microsoft is today, from the horse’s mouth. She had experienced the honor of stepping into the worlds of Stephen King and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She learnt what it meant to be a visionary from Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin themselves. Howard Schultz taught her what it truly meant to romance coffee. Elon Musk reaffirmed her belief in turning her Sci-Fi fantasies into reality. She got her first dose of theoretical physics from Stephen Hawking himself.

She had learned her syllabus in Life from the Maestros. It was almost like learning how to paint from Picasso himself.

All these encounters and endeavors had transformed her into someone who could proudly face the most important person when she stood in front of the mirror. She was an empowered and confident individual and the world became her oyster.

All this at the tender age of 26! She gave herself a pat on her back, jumped out of bed and walked down the hallway to her favorite room in the house.

The truth of the matter was that she had not left the city she was born in since her birth; she didn’t possess a passport for that matter. Neither was she gregarious enough to have the resources to encounter those visionaries and masterminds.

Her favorite room was the Library and her Maestros resided between the pages of her books.

 

Prospective Morals:

  • “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”- Stephen King
  • “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.”- Dr. Seuss

To all those Achievers and Winners, pen your experiences down into words and immortalize them within the hardcovers of a book. To all those still running the race, learn from those immortal words to anticipate the obstacles along your track; a planned strategy is always better than an impulsive one.

In the words of Roald Dahl,

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

In case you can’t throw the TV set away, Groucho Marx has something to say to you,

“I find Television very educating, every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

 

Edmund Wilson once said, “No two persons ever read the same book”.

Do leave comments and share your one of a kind book experience!