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Ashley Smith once said, “Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
In these trying times, it might become hard for us to live our lives to their fullest extent, and we might lose hope easily but we must remember that when life gets going, the going gets tough. We must learn to look adversity in the face and fight it. We are constantly burdened by the dark cloud of fate hanging over our heads, forcing us to constantly think about the future but we need to realize that the future is just a concept of time. What matters is living in the now. We need to fight our greatest fears and weaknesses because only then will we able to reap the fruits of success. And there can’t be a better example than Sushant Singh Rajput to corroborate this statement.
A small-town boy making it big in Bollywood- a fantasy we have all hoped for at least once in our lifetime and Sushant Singh Rajput was living that fantasy fairy tale for all of us. He was just like one of us, from a simple family with a simple ambition of becoming an engineer but he decided to make his life larger and worked for it. A National Olympiad winner in Physics, a simple kid interested in the science of planets and stars, who would’ve thought that one day, he would become a star himself?
His rise to fame was like a shining beacon of hope for us fans and that beacon dared us to aim big and work hard for it. It renews our desire in reaching for the stars. As much as his death saddens all of us, his life and his achievements have taught us several valuable life lessons.
1. Fight for your dreams
Born in Patna, Bihar, Sushant Singh Rajput started his career by making a debut in serials
and by doing plays. Not only was he a great and talented actor, but he was also academically gifted. He ranked seventh in the DCE entrance exam in 2003 and secured admission to the Delhi College of Engineering. While studying at Delhi Technological University, he enrolled in Shiamak Davar’s dance classes. He performed as a background dancer for several Bollywood biggies such as Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, and many more. In one of his interviews, he talks about how, while performing, he would always look at the superstars standing in front of him and think to himself that THAT is where he needs to stand. His love for theatre, acting, and dancing, however, resulted in him dropping out of college in the final year of his four-year course. Even after this little setback, he didn’t let his hopes falter. He had to face a lot of struggles while first moving to Mumbai to pursue his acting career. He talks about how he had to share a one BHK apartment with six other people but he didn’t get discouraged by this. He kept on striving for success.
Lesson:
We, as humans, tend to lose hope very easily. The moment we see something is not taking the direction we desired, we lose all hope and become lethargic and complacent. Giving up might be the easier thing to do but then you will end up spending your life in regret. And carrying the burden of regret is heavier than carrying the sadness of failure. So take that bold step now, fight till your dying breath and you will soon see your failure morph into the beautiful butterfly called success and the only way to go from there is up.
2. Living in the moment
While giving a speech at AVENUES SJMSOM, IIT Bombay 2016, Sushant talks about
the “biggest lie” and the “only truth” he was told about being successful. He said he was
taught from his childhood that money plus recognition was equal to happiness. However,
he realized soon after joining the industry that even though he had both money and recognition, he was still not happy. He felt cheated and claims that this is the biggest lie
he was told about being successful. He soon realized that the truth about being successful
is the excitement of living in the present.
Lesson:
We, as humans, constantly swing back and forth between the past and the future. We are
constantly worried about how our past actions are responsible for shaping our future and
in all this mayhem, we forget to live in the moment. We fail to realize that the past and the future are mere concepts and the present is all we have. Do what makes you happy because happiness, in these times, can be fleeting but do not lose hope. Use the time you
have in your hands now to the fullest. You never know what turn your life might take, in what direction it might take you so it is pointless to worry incessantly over something that is not within your control. The only thing within your control is how you make the most out of the time that you have in your hands right now. Utilize the gift of the present that has been bestowed upon us and start living in the moment before you run out of time and regret that you haven’t accomplished as much as you had hoped for.
3. Habit of happiness
In another one of his interviews with Anupama Chopra, he talks about how it is not the pursuit of happiness that will drive you for the rest of your life but the "Habit of Happiness" that will. He talks about how, as a child, after an entire day of toiling away at his study table, he would look forward to going out and play with his friends from 4 pm to 5:30 pm. However, his afternoon slot of happiness got lost somewhere in the chaos of growing up. He felt like something was missing from his life. The adrenaline that one gets while playing, the thrill and excitement were missing from his life but, as his acting career progressed and he took on more challenging ventures, he realized that now he was living the 4 pm to 5:30 pm life every day. The rush of energy was back in his body and he was able to combat life’s challenges with a newfound spirit and enthusiasm.
Lesson:
When you are doing something you love, you are driven and motivated from within to accomplish that task. You turn a blind eye to what the people around you are doing and you don’t care much about what they are saying either. You are automatically focused and, because of your love for that job, the hard work you put into it doesn’t seem like hard work. It’s important for us to find one habit which we can incorporate into our lives every day. It can be reading books, engaging in a sport, sketching your thoughts, or anything that gives you happiness. If you pick up on the thing and cherish it each day you will find your life pleasurable. So do what you want to do and you will soon realize that you were holding the key to your own happiness all this time.
4. Learning never stops
Fellow actor Manoj Bajpayee talks about how he only ever associated Sushant Singh Rajput with “happy things” like when the late actor would invite him for stargazing in the forest using his high-tech telescope. The actor had converted his bachelor pad into a sci-fi zone and was always spotted with a book on quantum physics on the set. He loved performing experiments such as experiments on cymatics and also taught himself a coding language. His pursuit of knowledge was never-ending and he had such a profound love for physics that he was once mistaken to be a physicist studying in France by a Cambridge Ph.D. scholar. The actor was also in the process of getting his engineering degree which he was unable to finish because he had decided to drop out of college in order to pursue a career in acting.
Lesson:
His passion for learning shows that you are never too old to set new goals. You are never too old for learning new disciplines because, after all, we all learn something new every day. Learning is a continuous process and too much knowledge is never a bad thing. The thirst for knowledge is unquenchable in us, humans and, with the power of learning, we learn to not only question everything around us but also seek answers to these questions.
We get to see the world from a whole new angle which makes us realize and truly appreciate the sheer beauty of it and all the things around us. Spend at least half an hour a day to learn something new or improve your skills, this will open up new doors of your life and bring in hope.
5. Give back to the Community
Sushant Singh Rajput’s bucket list is something that has been in the limelight for quite some time now. It not only contained tasks that he wanted to complete for his own pleasure such as playing a cricket match left-handed or playing tennis and poker with a champion but also contained tasks with which he could give back to the community such as teach kids more about space, send a hundred kids to NASA and ISRO. He wanted to help space-enthusiastic kids, like him, shoot for the stars (quite literally). He also wanted to teach women self-defense and work for free education in India. NITI Aayog, the think tank of India, had, in fact, signed him to promote the Women Entrepreneurship Platform and he also launched education programs such as Sushant4education for the students.
Lesson:
If there is any valuable lesson we should take from his life, it should be to give back to the community and to help people like yourself achieve their goals and fulfill their aspirations. Some people have the will and desire to fight for their dreams but they don’t have the means. It is our responsibility to help those people in whatever way possible. Even as little as a free meal can go a long way in benefiting them. Just like Sushant Singh Rajput, it is time that we all do our bit to help those in need so they can have the future they always yearned for the one they deserve a shot like all of us.
Looking back at these golden moments from Sushant Singh Rajput’s life, it’s time we inculcate some of his words of wisdom into our daily life. Let’s not allow his words of wisdom to fade away and let us allow his talent to stay on with us forever. He might be gone but we can celebrate his life by watching his last film “Dil Bechara” which will be released on the OTT platform Disney+Hotstar on July 24, 2020.
Failure and success are not defined. We each grow up with our own notions of failure and success and live our life according to them. These notions change with time and space and also differ from person to person so don’t let someone else dictate what "YOUR" version of success should be because, at the end of the day, success will mean nothing if you are not happy with the life you are leading. You might face several setbacks but don’t lose hope and carry on. There are a lot of ways to achieve success, just like there are a lot of procedures you can use to solve a particular arithmetic problem. No matter what method you use, you will have to put in the same amount of time, effort, and patience in order to find the right answer. However, not only is it important to keep your goal in mind but it also important to enjoy your journey. Take detours in your journey; get lost on your way to success, you never know what treasure you might unearth on your way to better days. Are you ready to inculcate these lessons in your life? Which one you will start from?