My friend gifted me the book, “I came upon a lighthouse” by Shantanu Naidu saying “I hope we are able to help the next generations reach their full potential. I hope we can be even 0.0001% of what Mr. Tata is.” I started reading the book on 15th October 2021 and finished it in a couple of hours. It has been a long time, more than three years since I read a book in a stretch.
GRATITUDE TOWARDS A BEAUTIFUL DEPICTION
As I was reading the book, I felt like I could connect with the emotions so explicitly expressed through the words of the author and beautifully depicted through the illustrations of the illustrator. It left me feeling like it’s just the beginning of the world that we could create together with this constant feeling of not doing enough and there’s a lot more to come in the journey ahead. To feel more excited about the things we could do in the future by putting our hearts to it. I express my gratitude to the author for writing this book and my friend for sharing it with me.
THE ART OF STORYTELLING
The thing that stuck to me the most while reading this book was “storytelling”. I could feel the author’s love for storytelling and how everyone is a story. It intrigued me to go on and know more about his venture “On the Sparks”. The author in his book talks about his learnings from a person close to him being humility, honesty, happiness, and various emotions of the author being fear, guilt, loneliness, and a spark of light in all the darkness. It reflects both the highs and the lows that consist of this interesting journey that all of us call life.
A BALANCE OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE
One of my important learnings is when we address our subordinates as colleagues, there is little room for disagreement, and the subordinates really put in the effort to live up to that treatment. The relationship between a boss and employee beyond the work zone and to be able to distinguish personal and professional lives with the same person gets tricky. A lot of the learnings are internalised by us subconsciously leaving us with a multitude of emotions of surprise and excitement when we understand for ourselves the series of events that amalgamated to result in the response that occurs. It is truly a mysterious turn of events and life does work in miraculous ways. We need patience, hard work, high tolerance, and risk appetite in order to become successful.
CONCLUSION
As I reach the end of the book, “That fated day when I came upon a lighthouse” it makes me realize that there are a lot of people out there looking upon lighthouses all around us. Some of us are lucky enough to understand and grab the opportunity. To observe and learn, to have realizations through admission into our journey outside of our comfort zone wherein lies a steep learning curve and massive growth along with being very uncomfortable. This book has inspired me to be a beacon of hope and be a lighthouse for as many people as I can through my life.
This is such a similar representation of what the book meant to me as well! May we all be lighthouses to ships passing in the night