Happiness can't be pursued, it must ensue - chasing happiness is self-defeating, chase the reason to be happy instead.
People have enough to live by, but nothing to live for.
Let me tell you a story.
Mohit is a fresh IIM graduate. He has recently joined his job. He works in a company that is a market leader in consumer electronics loans.
It is Thursday evening. His manager calls him, and informs him that he is supposed to be there at an electronics store of a well-known national electronics chain from morning till the store closes in the night from Friday through Sunday of the same week to learn the process from the point of loan approval to loan disbursement.
He is supposed to meet the ground sales staff of his NBFC present in the store, who take care of the tasks ranging from pitching the zero interest (on a majority of products) finance options to the customer to processing them in the store itself, learn from them, and present his learnings and suggestions for improvement in customer experience on Monday. At the thought of working on the weekend, he agrees, albeit grudgingly.
He peers through the cracks in the blinds on the glass walls of the office building. In a minute, he finds himself at the balcony of the building, having a wistful glance at the iron-grey monsoon sky, reminiscing the good old days of college, when they used to pull off weeks - not days - without a single holiday. He returns to his desk, with a clear head - devoid of any qualms about the impending slog on the weekend.
On Friday morning, he arrives at the store. After arriving at the counter of his NBFC in the store, he meets the salesmen. He finds them pretty humble and kind. He starts observing the way customers are pitched, treated, and the technology-driven way of loan processing. He jots down the points he thinks are worth taking a note of.
As the day passes by, he finds the value communication of zero interest loans to the customers pretty intriguing. He starts understanding how the products they manage sitting in the luxury of the air conditioned office are sold by the sales staff at the bottom end of the hierarchy of the organisation.
He finds out that the patience of sales staff is a well that never dries. There is no sign of exasperation on their faces when he asks them silly questions notwithstanding their insane workload of handling tons of customers. He is amazed to observe their work ethics and commitment towards their duty. He is awed when he notices them offering their chair(s) to the customer(s), in case the ones present fall short, and processing the loan on the system while standing.
He grumbles about him having to work on the weekend while his friends will savor the much awaited Saturday, only to find out that the sales staff works for as many as thirty days in a row without a holiday in the peak season of the year. A lump of gratitude passes through his throat.
He leaves the store at 9:30 pm on Friday. The next day, he meets a newly married couple who have come to buy a refrigerator of 20,000 Indian Rupees. On being informed about the zero interest instant finance facility offered by his company, they take away a TV, a Refrigerator and a Home Theater System worth 1,20,000 Rupees - by paying the down payment of the same 20,000 Rupees they had brought with them. The excitement on their faces of embellishing their new home with the electronics durables of their desires makes him experience the concept of customer delight he had studied in the classroom.
With each passing day of his store visit, his excitement and desire to spend more time there keeps soaring in his heart, like snow collecting on a wall, one flake at a time. On Sunday night, he bids adieu to the sales staff. He books a shared Uber to his flat, sharing it with some girls, who are headed towards a pub that was supposed to screen the India-Pakistan cricket match. When the cab driver and Mohit talk about India's defeat in the match, the girls are aghast - not at the fact of being unaware that India has lost, but at the fact that there will be no screening for them to enjoy the weekend. They start searching for other places to go to, without even asking how India lost. Mohit chuckles with his lips closed.
Come Monday morning, he is back in office. He is supposed to present his findings of the visit. Having a fair understanding of the process, the customer experience and the scope of in-store marketing, he prepares a report. He presents it later in the day, answering a few questions, stumbling at a few others - leaving everyone in the room pretty satisfied. He returns home late.
After having dinner, he dozes off only to wake up in the early morning shivering from cold due to the breeze flowing through the window of his room. He finds out that he has fallen ill. Notwithstanding the ongoing summer season, he places an online order for an air condition summer quilt at 5:30 am. Now, he starts reading the biography of Sam Walton (Founder of Walmart).
After some time, he leaves for office along with his flatmates. On reaching office, he realises that the three days spent at the store were the best days of his hitherto fifty-day long journey in the organisation. Scrambling to understand a plethora of things that he is supposed to learn from his seniors in the office, who carry the badges of their alma maters, designations, and the number of years of experience on their chests, he reminds himself of the humility of the sales staff at the store.
Exhausted through the day, he realises that his throat infection and fever have worsened. He decides to walk for the 1.5 km distance from his office to home, to buy medicines, fruits et al along the way. After returning home, he falls on the bed, only to wake up to have his dinner, and discuss the proceedings and gossips of the day in the office with his flatmates.
Lying on the bed, with the fan off, medicine pills gobbled, he browses Quora, finds this question, and decides to write an answer to it.
Would his life have been different had he not been from an IIM?
Probably wouldn't.
Would he have prepared himself for work on the weekend as easily had he not been from a college where he had slogged on almost all the weekends?
Probably wouldn't.
Is his life happier than his peers' who are not from an IIM?
Can't say. Life after an IIM is not two half-moons of white and black colors; it’s a thousand shades of grey peppered with glimpses of happiness and otherwise.
The same goes for life beyond an IIM, or for that matter, any other institute.
