Why the End-End Picture Matters.

When I was in Grade 9, there used to be immense academic pressure in our lives on scoring the highest in our class. In Pakistan, where I did my initial academic studies, there was a system of Board exams, starting from Grade-9. Folks who were not enrolled in O-levels or another American/British curriculum would go through these exams.

I was recently narrating to someone that how there were 3 kinds of patterns in our academic life, around that time.

• We used to have 3 exams within our internal classes and then the Final Board Exam
• There was also the concept of the ‘Best Student of the School’ Award

Somehow, the pattern we used to observe was that the person ranking the highest in local school exams was always different than the person who topped the actual Board exam, in that class. Similarly, the person who was awarded the ‘Best Student of the School’, was sometimes neither of the toppers.

We were drilled into immense pressure on being the topper. This pressure created a cycle, where scoring the highest in class exams was sometimes more important than anything.

When I was in Grade-9, I would consistently tell my sister to pray that I may come 1st in the class. Since she knew the end-end story better, she would affirm that she wanted me to do better all-round and all over in the final exam, instead of just the class exams.

Somehow, at that point, that idea did not resonate with me.

This is very true of life in general.

The pressure of succeeding in the eminent future always outweighs an all-rounded success, unfortunately.

In retrospect only, we recognize that how an end-end success is so much more important than a local success or failure.

Sometimes, what we perceive as success is not even real success, even if the world around us is applauding our efforts.

It is far more important that one strives for balance and growth in an overall direction, instead of just growing laterally in one direction.

Lets focus more on our end-end stories and strive towards that, rather than always being focused in the near present and now.