Stubborn

When I was in year six I joined the Junior scout troop. Within a few months of joining we went camping at the picturesque pedro camp site. If I remember it correctly Neelaka, Riyazi and yours truly were the junior most members. When we were returning back from the camp the quarter masters, one of them was my brother Sabes anna, were reading out the 'honors' list of the camp, it included the naming of the best scout, best PL, most enthusiastic scout, most selfish scout, most laziest scout, etc... It was a very long list and names fell under multiple categories too. I cannot remember how many categories in which my name appeared but I can clearly remember being named as the most stubborn scout (an exclusive 'honor'). Funnily I didn't understand the word, I thought it was something good, so I came back home and asked someone for the exact meaning. Even when I was explained the meaning I didn't understand how it related to me.

Later on I understood the meaning of it, but in multiple instances I thought that stubbornness was the critical success factor which enabled me to touch some dizzy heights. I started to like to live with the identity of being stubborn. I was proud of living the tamil phrase "munn vaitha kalai pin vaikka mattaen", which when translated says "never step back".

Few days back I lost my cool with someone who is very close to me. It was a momentous out burst out of sheer madness and sounded very decisive in the matter at hand. Leaving the other person deeply hurt, specially knowing that my usual stubbornness wouldn't allow me to back track on the statements.

But this time around after going through a few epic failures and the resulting soul searching I knew the foolishness of the identity that I had embraced for long. Thankfully now self realization of the weakness has happened deep inside and I manage to identify when the weakness is playing havoc. In this instance a few minutes later I knew it was a moment of madness so I apologized, retracted the statements, leaving the other person totally surprised and shocked! Other person quipped "first time in a life time from you".

The trick I learnt the hard way is if you had kept a step in the wrong direction, as soon as you realize it, be willing to accept it and step back and correct the path to make the future brighter, instead of being stubborn. Ultimately in the death bed I cannot be proud of the fact that I was a stubborn man for the wrong causes. It took 20 years for me to realize this, but I am happy I did atleast now.

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