I always find myself curious to know what goes on in your mind when you enter a new year. Is it only an occasion for you to do a party and celebrate the new year? Is it only a change of a date for you? Do you look at it as just a new leaf in the calendar? Do you rejoice at the new year? Or a pall of gloom descends upon you? Do you like to enter a new year with all fanfare around you? Or you prefer to be alone, reflecting upon the days passing by so fast? Do you only look at the incoming year or think carefully about the outgoing year too? Every individual has his or her way to enter the new year. And that is why it makes me more curious to know what goes on in one’s mind at the time of entering a new year.
For me, every new day, forget about every new year, is an occasion to ponder on the past and move on to the next day with new hope, new zeal and new goals. Only that at the time of a new year, this process gets much bigger as events of an entire year, personal as well as public, occupy my mind in a reflective way and shape my thoughts for the next year. Probably, this has come from my working at CSR, where we have to deal with every new development with a perspective evolved from the learnings of the past. What I have learnt over the years is that how efficiently and insightfully you chose the best from the past to shape your future. There is no point in mulling about insignificant things of the past. They deserve to be buried where they are. But how to pick what is significant and what is not? That’s a million dollar question. Some do have a naturally gifted ability of picking the best from the past. Others have to learn the art of picking the best of one’s past to embrace the future as a better and wiser person.
At the threshold of 2022, when I was looking back at the year gone by, I couldn’t help but think about the scientists who actually developed vaccines for us to beat the coronavirus. After all, who were these people equipped with knowledge of virology, working in laboratories, test tubes in their hands and eyes on the microscope, who ran against time to develop one or the other vaccine to save millions of people from the ominous clutches of the deadly virus? We still have little knowledge about these individuals in public domain, but they did a yeoman service to the humanity.
Among others, I was thinking about Mr. Elon Musk. Not because he is the richest person on earth. Or, not because now he has become the first-ever human on the planet to be worth of $300 billion. His wealth is only a by-product of him as a person. His success has its roots in his way of thinking. His ability to think what others cannot think and his ability to do what others cannot do. He founded Tesla, electric vehicle manufacturer, in 2003 when electric vehicles were not the buzz of the town. As Product Architect at Tesla, he developed electric sports car before bringing EVs to the masses. It is this Tesla that has made him the richest person with a yawning gap with his competitors. It is because of this visionary of him that today Tesla’s valuation of $1.2 trillion has completely overshadowed those of the conventional automakers.
Take SpaceX, another of his visionary work. He founded the company in 2002 when neither the climate change had become such a humongous concern nor anybody was thinking in such an out-of-the-box manner. In the very beginning of the new millennium, he thought of colonising Mars and two decades down the line, the company has complete dominance over the commercial space market in the US. Take another of his more recent venture, value of which will be dawned upon others only after some years if not decades. In 2016, he co-founded Neuralink, a neuro technology company, to make sensors that would allow humans to communicate with machines telepathically. The company is already worth of $500 million. If the Time magazine has chosen him as their ‘2021 Person of the Year’, it is not without reason. After all, how many people are there who are thinking in terms of interplanetary life being the next great leap of human evolution?
To me, these are the stories that have enriched our past and deserve to be picked up and drawn inspiration from to shape our future.
Wishing you a very successful and enriching New Year in all your endeavours and in all spheres of your life.