Jumping off the Diving Board

When a young lad marches into the world with all his degrees in a neat little file, all he asks for is a springboard from which to start.

Courtesy: http://www.mypersonalimprovement.com

While sailing along magnificently through the most productive years of his life, academically speaking of course, the guy who had broken last year’s college record of the greatest number of wickets in a cricket match, broke down. His father retired from government service and declared his financial assets before the boy. The family fortune was barely enough to see him through college. He was the eldest son and that in itself was self-explanatory of what was expected of him. He locked up his bat and ball and bade his cricketing pals goodbye. He looked a dilapidated man as he walked off the cricket ground, his dreams of stardom shattered, his studies all in a mess.

Out in the world, it was a different ball game altogether. There was no family enterprise to take over except a garment shop, which did not seem very enterprising to him. He started hunting for jobs. But here, he had few qualifications to prove his worth, and where he was academically adequately qualified he lacked experience. At last he found himself standing outside the Army recruitment centre staring at the sign-”The Army needs you”- They did.
It was a decent way of running away from home and responsibilities, or so he thought. But the rigorous military training soon drove the thought right out of his mind and he returned- a shaken man whose confidence in himself had been shattered. Sitting alongside his father at the shop, he wondered where things had gone wrong.
That’s the question most of us end up asking ourselves when we end up in the no-man’s land. The guy had been thrust into the world to make a niche for himself, but he needed some kind of footage- a springboard from which to start. For most people its the family business that cushions them when they start out to face the world. They are able to manage with what little talent they have. The graduate student who has his degrees to boast about may soon find that good grades may open for him the doors to top universities, but they cannot guarantee him a bright future. While the son of a business entrepreneur may go abroad to enhance his profile, the son of a grade 16 government servant may well just rust away.
Round about 22, when most of us jump off the diving board and plunge into the professional world, we are bursting with ideas, more adventurous than our predecessors and waiting to try out life’s uniforms. We have our competence to prove to the world, but we are also aware that we are on trial. This is the big moment we have been waiting for all along, and we want to strike it big. But if we rush head along into the professional world we are bound to be hit by a whirlwind. The susceptible period of our formative years is too precious to be wasted in unplanned moves. Recklessness on one’s part could lead to life long repentance.
So my advice to anyone poised for action on the diving board would be to trust their instincts. You can never be Mr. Perfect and too much introspection interferes with action. And as the proverbial saying goes, “just keep your fingers crossed”. There’s a whole new world out there to discover but if you start out too early and jump off ill-prepared you will hit solid ground, and that hurts!

Courtesy: afaq.edu.pk

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