Reflection - Module 2

Akash Kyal
1811252

After the first module, I was left with no doubt on having taking up this course and was looking
forward to the upcoming classes and the new topics for discussion. The second module
started with us being asked to reflect on an experience where we have compared ourselves
with others. As soon as this was asked of us, I could start recalling numerous such incidents
and experiences but had been hesitant to talk about it even to myself. However, this exercise
forced me to do that and while I recalled these experiences, I discovered that most of these
comparisons had been futile and more often ended with the experience motivating me enough
to do even better. The professor then shared her thoughts where she explained that such
comparisons are natural for everyone - we do it constantly with our peers around us and that
such comparisons are not always bad but unnecessary because each of us are unique and
have our own identities and strengths.

To reinforce the point that each of us are unique, we were then asked to list down our own
strengths across three themes - talents/ capabilities, deep interests as well as values & ethics.
While I struggled to think of my own strengths, these themes definitely helped and I was able
to come up with as many as 8 strengths that I have (some of which I never realized). Having
done this exercise, when I looked around and spoke to my friends, I did discover that each of
them had listed down starkly different strengths of their own. The professor had made the
point - even in a class of MBA students with 90% engineers, the strengths of each individual
was different than the others. The TED talk on this session also was quite interesting and one
of the key takeaways for me was that - we are like bananas and oranges are what we want to
see ourselves as. We should be happy and cherish being a Banana instead of chasing a
fairytale.

A surprise awaited after this exercise - we were asked to assume that we are dead (at an age
we deemed right) and then asked to write a self obituary. While the idea itself horrified me,
looking at my own life, rather, looking at my upcoming life from 50 years from now when I am
dead compelled me to think - what I really want my life to shape up like and how I want to be
remembered after I depart. The funny thing is that the life I am living right now is nowhere
close to how I wanted my life to be lived and remembers. But then, I am not dying today -
there’s still a long way to go.

The 7th session was one of the most interesting ones as the topic for discussion was “Your
Relationship with Money”. We were asked to make a drawing that depicted what we think
about our relationship with money if personified. While drawings have always been hard for
me, this one seemed rather easy to make. The relationships varied a lot across students - for
me it was just an enabler, not a need - not an objective. The TED talk and reflection questions
followed. My takeaway from the talk was the story about how the speaker had managed to
use money to buy happiness - not by using it in the service of self but in the service of those
who need it. If anyone tells me now that money can’t buy happiness now - I can prove them
wrong. This also inspires me to buy as much happiness as possible in life with the money I
make. One of the discussion points also had a profound impact on me and led me to reflect
- about how we as a society have made money an evil while in reality it’s not money’s fault at
all.

In the final session for the module, we did a few exercises in class aimed at figuring out on of
the most difficult things in life, at least for me - our own authentic interests. The exercise of
choosing top 12 jobs that I would want to do irrespective of the skills and capabilities enabled
me to think beyond without any boundaries. Unsurprisingly, the career that I am about to take
on did not appear on the list. However, it did give me a sense of what I really wanted to do or
in other words - what I would have wanted to see myself doing but had never been even in
consideration because I did not or at least thought that these jobs do not align with my skill
set.

Given the list of 12 most preferred jobs, we were grouped into 5 strangers and were asked to
profile each person and his interests based on patterns in the list. A third person view of my
aspirations and deep interests seemed a little uncomfortable as I felt like being judged but the
exercise revealed to me some traits or interests that I would have never even thought about.
The final exercise of this session was to map the jobs with a list of predefined ten basic
interests and gauge on where we are aligned to. This exercise just reinforced what I had
already discovered in the last 2 exercises and my emerging interests were something I had
never thought about before. I intend to build on these interests further to be able to pursue a
more fulfilling job rather than do what my skills define for me.

As the classes progress, so does my interest in the lectures and more interesting discussions
on topics which I have always found to be difficult to reflect upon even in solitude. Looking
forward to discovering more of myself in the upcoming lectures.