As students, most of us are oblivious to the fact that there is also some mettle beyond making and cramming notes. The evidence pervades almost daily in our attitudes, showing up in our expressions clearly, how well we know our lessons, and further, in our expectations of getting good grades. This then makes us dream of our enrolment in best colleges which ultimately would lead us to immensely satisfying jobs. As easy and luring this may sound, this does in fact happen only in utopia. In real life, there is a long way to go despite good grades.


Talking about all rich and successful people, not all were good scorers. Stories of renowned scientists being stupid at school and novelists never having attended one have always been told from a long time to mock the toppers and encourage the average minded. Sparing inventors and writers, also some businesspeople have made it from rags to riches with amusing creativity but negligible schooling, and this again has been highly inspiring for other aspiring entrepreneurs not very highly capable of acing all tests.


There are students willing to lose even a couple of years after completing their high school. In the meantime, they try to prepare for the college entrance tests in a way as if nothing else matters to them. And after putting such a ridiculous amount of time into that, they do manage to get into the choice college. However, entrance tests like this should not be entertained because then humans become like horses. We don’t rule over other inhabitants of the planets to be like them. Here we bother running behind grades and overrule the life skills, simply because the bridle does not permit us.


To make it very simple, everything does not come with good grades. Moreover, there’s more to life than academic excellence. Having the best grades does not guarantee one the skills required to be successful. One may be very well equipped virtually with the theory of what fits where but translating it from paper to practice could be a tough challenge. Not all with excellent mark sheets make the best of managers in life. A strong personality and assertiveness, along with so many other practical skills, make one. Therefore, making notes on how to become a successful manager by referring to various sources like in school or college would not help. This is a life examination, not paper based test where dumping all last minute muggings from memory could help.


We students along with our parents love to tell others of our tales of academic achievements, line in line with them and their children. From the sound of the conversation the nation has always been full of an intelligent squad of people, nonetheless, missing in action since the last time anybody can remember. Or the other way round, being a topper all your life does not guarantee you do so in life. This brings us back to square one, from where we recommence to think whether being a topper does really make one necessarily efficacious. Had it been so, we probably would have had a constitution readily drafted as of yet, I suppose?


Like the famous online motivator Ralph Marston puts it, ‘Excellence is not a skill, but an attitude.’ As we go on outdoing everybody academically, we need to ask ourselves if we have accumulated all the life skills we need to run a happy and successful career. If not, it is time we open up and look past those books. It is time to play the real game, and let challenges right through us.