00:00Namaste Acharya ji. My question was regarding a tendency that I have always had all my life.
00:11It was regarding quitting things when they get extremely tough. Like I will give you
00:15a short example. Let's say when I was preparing for my JEE, there were questions that were
00:20kind of easy, like formula based. There were questions that were kind of medium level.
00:25And then there were questions which were very tough and they combined multiple concepts.
00:31So I usually went with the easy questions and I solved them and when it came to the
00:34tougher questions, I quit. How do I change this tendency? How do I address this tendency
00:39and get better? It's about the self-concept that we carry. That self-concept is not innate
00:47but it gets built over the several years. If your self-concept tells you, you do not
00:54deserve to crack the toughest question, then you will not put everything into cracking
00:59the toughest question. In fact, you will needlessly make any question the toughest one. You have
01:09to tell yourself that you deserve to solve even the toughest problem and then the tough
01:16problem is no more all that tough. One has to love himself a bit more and say, yes it's
01:28difficult but for me it's doable. If situations, upbringing, media, influences, education,
01:41they have all conditioned you into thinking that you must always stay one level below
01:47the best, then something very strange will happen. Even when the opportunity to be the
01:54best will come to you, you will miss out on that opportunity. It happens a lot of times
02:04in sports. Great players belonging to the A-league, you understand the A-league? Just
02:13one level below the topmost level, let's say the international level. Great players
02:21belonging to the A-league performing magnificently, when they finally get a chance at the highest
02:28level, they flop decimally. Why? Why? Something in them is constantly whispering, you are
02:40great but only at the penultimate level. This top level is not for you. So, batsman who
02:52has been performing greatly at the Ranji and the Delhi trophy levels, he gets his test
03:02cap and five consecutive times he gets out to pretty harmless deliveries, pretty harmless
03:12deliveries. In the domestic circuit, he has been constantly dispatching similar deliveries
03:19to boundaries. In a domestic match, if you give him a similar delivery, he will flick
03:28it to the boundary. But in the international match, a similar delivery and he loses his
03:34wicket. Why? Something in him tells him, I don't belong to the topmost level. That has
03:44to be challenged. Whosoever it is who told you that you are not good enough has to be
03:52rejected and we all have influences in our life whose job has been to tell us that we
04:01are not good enough. In matters of love, love itself is the qualification. No other qualification
04:13is needed. Nobody else is needed to tell you that you are good enough. If you love something,
04:18you are already good enough for it. Love is the qualification. If you love mathematics,
04:26your love makes you good enough. You don't require an external agency to come and certify
04:32how good you are. I love it and I will keep having a go at it. Getting it? Tell yourself,
04:44yes, it's a tough problem, but I am tougher. Who is your father? You are tough, but I am tougher.
04:57Thank you, sir.
05:01Pranam, Acharya ji. So, you said that one should first stop and reflect what he is doing. Isn't
05:12that also a choice? Everything is a choice. To be alive is to be responsible for choosing
05:23every moment. You cannot give up that responsibility and those who do not take that responsibility,
05:30they become slaves. Slaves don't have choices. In fact, that's the very definition of slavery.
05:36You will not have choice anymore. Now you are a slave.
05:42Yes, of course. How else will you choose? If you choose in compulsion, that is no choice at all.
05:49So, the only right basis of choice has to be love, but you cannot love without understanding.
05:55So, even before love comes, understanding then. If you love without understanding,
06:01then that's just basic animalistic attraction. Even animals are attracted,
06:07but human beings love and to love is to first of all understand. So,
06:15understanding has to be the basis of choice and that requires constant attention.
06:21You have to be present. From that comes choice.
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