Revision

While we constantly yearn to capture one or the other facet of our childhoods, there is for sure one aspect we don’t want to experience again, that is revision of courses,. However, a little deep thought and introspection led me to a realization that revision (not of courses particularly) seems to be a very underrated activity.

Today, let’s try to look at why is revision important, not only to students, but people of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Who here has fond memories of the good old school days?

Getting up in the morning, rushing through a shower, wearing the ironed uniform as we await the school bus to pick you up for the next 8 hours, where you chill with your friends, share food items during the lunch hour, play your favorite sports and last, but deservedly so, attend classes.

Amidst this still sea of a lifestyle, there used to be a high tide, rocking and at times displacing the stable water from underneath our easy sailing kayaks and replacing them with untamed waves; “Examinations”. An activity organized by schools in a futile attempt to judge future Albert Einstein(s), Isaac Newton(s) and Richard Feynman(s) using just a piece of paper. I mean, why did we need exams in the first place?

(People wholeheartedly agreeing to the aforementioned paragraphs, just FYI, that was sarcasm).

These exams used to separate the most inseparable comrades from one another, all trying to collect as many mental (and at times physical) resources to sail through this sea storm. While there were many (like me) who used to have a hard time completing the syllabus once, there were some outliers, conversations with whom went somewhat like the following.

The fear struck by conversations of this sort has only a few comparisons, and I shudder to recall any of them right now.

Well, thinking about one of these conversations was what triggered me to write this article.

Early on in life, almost all of us were encouraged to constantly revise everything we had studied and reminded to find areas of improvement. However, as life progresses, this activity of looking back and reevaluating our decisions and life trajectory takes a back seat.

So much so, that we catch ourselves describing our lives using adjectives like “going through the motions” or “same old, same old”. I am guilty of using the latter as my default response to the question “how’s life?”. And a little part of my mind, which is responsible for monitoring my own being, tells me that this isn’t really the idea of what I had imagined my life to be like.

And even more interestingly, we are completely fine and accepting of wherever we are in life, despite the feeling being non-ideal.

Taking a look at our lives, reevaluating our priorities is a very underrated activity, and it is something that we must constantly do, in order to have a firm grip on the tiller to steer our lives in the right direction. We seemingly don’t do that as often as we should though.

This begs the question, what stops us from stopping and revisiting where we are in life? I have come to a realization that should act as an explanation.

The increased stimuli all throughout the world, which are supposed to make our lives easier, pull us in so many directions, that it becomes very hard to focus on the things we intentionally want to focus on.

So, our being in auto-pilot is one of the key reasons that we aren’t able to take control of our ability to revise our lives. That being said, there has to be a logic behind us constantly allowing this auto-pilot to function as it does?

I might have a reason compelling enough to at least be food for thought.

While we as humans like to be in control, being in control is something we are terribly poor at.

Curious? Let me take a couple of illustrations:

• We can constantly reevaluate our financial expenses, but curbing that Rs. 10000 a month expense of eating out isn’t something we can successfully do.
• We can constantly monitor our body fat percentage, but stopping ourselves from eating that last piece of cake isn’t something we are interested in doing.

At least until we overcome that inertia, we find it extremely hard to do things intentionally. And this leads to us going on auto-pilot, which stops us from revisiting and taking control of things. Quite a vicious cycle, isn’t it?

The daunting question for this one is quite a straight-forward one. Is there a way out of this vicious cycle?

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one.