Success is beautiful, but do we want to appreciate the price that we need to pay for it?
“Research is the minute expansion of an already existing body of knowledge”, I scribbled into my notebook, whilst attending a module titled “Fundamentals of Research Methodology”. At surface level, this concept seemed rather lucid, but this sentence stuck and gnawed at me. Why would anyone’s life goal be to make a tiny ripple in an already existing body of knowledge?
The first half of my journey at SCMC is already complete. Before I was a member of this institution, the words “India’s Best Mass Communication College” seemed like a distant proposition. It wasn’t a banner that I carried, and far from a reason to hold my head up high. Then, this journey began, before most of us could even find our footing. We fell. It wasn’t a pretty sight. My failures accumulated and I realized that this is what I was truly made for. Yes, failure.
The idea that someone is made for “failure” is thoroughly disconcerting. “Why would you say that?” my friends questioned me as I shared this idea. Disputes arose before I could even explain. It made it very evident that success is beautiful, but do we want to appreciate the price that we need to pay for it?
My first day of college is vivid in my mind, I strutted with confidence that I would set out to be the best at everything I did even though I was surrounded by extremely talented individuals who were hard-working and sincere.
Three semesters at this institution and looking back, I realize that I spent nights worrying about submitting the perfect assignment, writing the perfect story and just being perfect. All this while, I did not realize how the institution had built an atmosphere of dreams, yet embracing failure, learning from it and trying to never repeat it. I realized that success is beautiful, but so are the stepping stones that accompany it. Professor Anupam Siddhartha, the Director, has been my role model in this sense and has pushed me to be a better version of myself. So today, I realize that every time I have fallen short of my own expectations, I have succeeded in the long run. Accepting failure and learning from it equals immediate growth. Being afraid of defeat and never taking the plunge is probably the biggest disservice to our existence.
“Research” is merely a metaphor for life, a powerful lesson that this short duration and awe-inspiring mentorship has taught me. At SCMC, we’re all making tiny ripples in an existing body much greater than any of us, but at the same time, every time we take the pain to make a ripple, we are growing in ways that we do not even understand. One day, all the ripples that are made through us, critically thinking and critically executing individuals under training, will change the demographics of the pond. That’s the day we’ll know that we made it, and by the time you realize, we would have moved on to the next challenge.
Article by: Armaan Dua (Batch of 2019)
Photograph by: Armaan Dua (Batch of 2019)
