What Keeps The Fire Burning?

Today during my morning run I saw a kid no more than 10 carrying a large cricket kit bag, wearing the India cap, waiting for his cab. Accompanying him was his mother. The kit bag was nearly as heavy as the kid. The time was 6 am, the sun hadn’t yet fully come up, it was a holiday, Mumbai was getting into its worst weather of heat combined with searing humidity. And yet this kid was as determined as I had seen any to get to the ground.

Cricket in India is a religion. We are a one sport country and the 11 who represent us on the field are superstars. Every boy and now increasingly most girls dream of wearing the India blue and representing us. But it is the most competitive field in the country. Only 11 make it to the pinnacle and fewer stay there. If you slip, somebody is around you to take your place. One has to be a maniac or love the game too much to sustain, reach the top and stay there.

So what does it take to get there? Talent - yes definitely. You need to have something extraordinary to even reach there and compete at every age group level to be selected in the 11. But talent usually opens doors for you, possibly even keeps it open for sometime, but as you progress higher, every kid around you is talented, has come from the system and marginal value of talent keeps on diminishing. Many talented prodigies have come through the game and not survived.

So does hard work count - yes it does. At times hard work may even be disguised for talent. The slogger and the hard worker who works his back off. This is usually seen in come backs. When talent meets hard work magic happens. Seeing Riyan Parag in this IPL, I was reminded of value of hard work. He said the same in his interview. Hard work helps you stay in the room whose door talent has opened. Helps you survive and possibly thrive. It usually happens away from the limelight and starts by accepting your weakness. It starts by being ready to fail, to accept your shortcomings and then working on them till one day you master your deficiencies. Shivam Dube and Shreyas Iyer with the short ball are the story of the same hard work.

But what gets people to keep working hard? What gets people to desire for more. What makes them go through and endure the pain again and again everyday even when they have cushy lives? What keeps the fire burning?

I donot know! It is usually about a point to prove. Some unfulfilled desire which you believe would be fulfilled when you achieve success, when you become the best! The desire to be at the top! The thing that you need to prove to yourself, you parent, you ex, that teacher who said you would not be worthy enough, those rich kids who had the luxuries which you didnot, the fame and adulation which you craved but never got, the humiliation which you want to avenge, the praise that you want to receive or the acceptance that you crave?

Every successful person is an anxious overachiever, trying to fill that void. The fact that, that void would never be filled is what keeps them going. To be the king or queen of the room, you need to be broken at some level and that usually comes from adversity ( of some kind)!

So coming back to the kid, who lives in a posh Mumbai society, goes to the ground in a cab, studies in an elite school and has to compete with somebody who sleeps in the chawl, wakes up at 4 am and runs to catch the morning local to get to the same ground. The other kid sees this guy come to the ground in a shiny kit in an AC cab while he has to keep repairing his bat which is his one prized possession. Who would make it to the highest level?

The one who is more broken and desires it a lot more!