First 10 seconds..

"Life ain't about sunshine and rainbows, there is a cruel world out there waiting for you to fall so that they can keep their foot on your head and rise above you."

I would like to share with you a small story. This story revolves around the life of a boy named Felipe. He was born and brought up in the western part of Germany. He was a very obedient child. Education was always his primary focus. When he was in school, his life was occupied with the thought of scoring the highest marks in the academics. He never even thought of making friends. There was no such word like 'socialize' in the mini pocket dictionary fitted in his heart. He always thought, if he studies very well, the world will respect him. He had a perception that, his simplicity and innocence will get the world attracted towards him. Then he entered high school. His attitude was the same, not even an ounce of it changed. He went on to study medicine. He studied very hard. He used to study for around 7 hours everyday, just because of the millions of dreams he was carrying in his small pocket. Moreover, his thirst for success and the willingness to do something big in life made him pursue his post graduation in London. He was very happy, he had a faith in mind that success was at his doorsteps. He started working much harder and at the same time he used to see other students from his university, partying and socializing and think what idiots they are!! "We come here to study so we should only do that." After spending few months at the University and burning the mid night oil, he decided to attend a speaking club at his University. This had fellow members from all over the world. They used to go out and socialize at restaurants and bars. Nevertheless, he also started joining them. At this junction of time, he realized that he wasted his entire life reading about the world in books. He started experiencing the real practical world over there. When he couldn't manage to socialize in the crowd of people, he started feeling isolated from the crowd. He saw that the world out there is very different as to what he had read in books. The real challenge to him was throughout his life he hadn't given any importance to socializing. He had classmates who had few years of work experience and had confronted the real world and he just observed them as to how they manage to talk to people in the group and Felipe who was so proud of his hard work, just sat in between two groups who were busy talking; and was unable to even talk to one person. People started ignoring him. Just at that instant one of his classmate uttered these words, "The real way of assuming something about anyone is just done in first 10 seconds of his presence." Felipe then realized that the first 10 seconds of his presence in front of someone was like an introvert; and people didn't find any pleasure to talk to him. That day he came home with a frustrated mind, he had tonnes of questions in his head. After few hours of stress reduction session, he decided to change as a person. He thought, "What if people didn't bother to even look at me today. I will try to learn from them. There is no point in envying others. To be the change, I have to modify my attitude towards life." Felipe was very happy with this realization and he went to sleep waiting for a new sunrise in his life.