RUHUL KADER: We live in a different world today. A world where success, achieved by any means, is the ultimate yardstick to measure one’s worth. That too has to be earned within a short time frame. Hence, everyone is in hurry.
Everyone wants to succeed, as quickly as possible. This is the ultimate culture of immediacy. The idea that it takes sustained effort to achieve something is almost alien today. Everybody is in rush.
This is a dangerous thing, particularly when you are building a company or pursuing a creative profession. Because it takes years to build something meaningful.
Many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of chasing the overnight success and social media celebrityhood. This is a wrong strategy. What you should seek instead is finding something that you can do for a very long time without the expectation of immediate return.
Almost all great stories of entrepreneurship and creative geniuses are stories of long battle and endless sleepless nights, sweat and hard work. They hang on for too long. They continue giving their 100% for 10,000 hours and more. They don’t believe in the idea that meaningful success comes easily.
The key to any meaningful journey is that you have to be patient. You have to allow things to happen. Instead of worrying and trying to push yourself, you have to wait for the natural order. The point is that it is about patient hard work. A lot of people I see they hurry so much. It feels so strange to me. If you want to achieve everything in life overnight, the chance is that you may spoil the whole thing.
Think of Piplu R Khan when he told us that he started his career at the age of 27. That’s an age when today’s youth aims to be a millionaire.
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PIPLU R KHAN: After all these years of trial and error, I have learned that you cannot question your formations and you cannot change it. I came to filmmaking at the age of 27.
All my friends were established and I was just getting started, that too in an industry where it was naturally hard to make a mark. It was a risky proposition.
Now touching 40, I realize that that was exactly the right time for me to start my career in filmmaking.
If I had started at 20, I might be a failure. I could have given up seeing the difficult reality of the industry. I might not be able to produce any good work.
Your intellectual capacity, your mental maturity may come early or much later in life. But it will come. Your job is to be vigilant and understand when your time is.
Most of us when we are on a journey or pursuing something, we rush. We overthink. We think that everyone else is doing so much better than us. This tendency kills so many dreams.
The key to any meaningful journey is that you have to be patient. You have to allow things to happen. Instead of worrying and trying to push yourself, you have to wait for the natural order. The point is that it is about patient hard work.
A lot of people I see they hurry so much. It feels so strange to me. If you want to achieve everything in life overnight, the chance is that you may spoil the whole thing.
In our industry whatever you want to achieve, it takes 10 years. That’s the regular timeline. If you don’t have enough time, you might realize that, ok it is not working for me, and then move on. It doesn’t matter. Life is not that complicated unless you make it so.
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Notes
1) This piece is an extract from Piplu R Khan’s interview with FS.
2) Further reading: You may read Piplu’s full interview here.
