“I was a kid who just wanted to participate” This is not about us, but someone I have enjoyed over the years. More in the recent years than ever before. But it also about every one of us.
I was watching Shahrukh Khan’s interview at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland where he received the life time achievement Pardo alla Carriera (Career leopard) where the first question to him was when he started loving films. To this he replies that he was just a kid who got himself involved in everything, be it science or art or anything…
I wish to rephrase what he said as
“I was a kid who just wanted to participate”
Because that relates to us as professionals….
Though he did not say that exact words I think this can be a deep and profound statement for us processionals to think about. Yes, not just for kids, but for us… as professionals.
As kids we love the act of participating and see participation as a completion of honest effort and we are happy about it.. we feel complete. Till we realize that there is something called winning and losing. I think as professionals we need to start enjoying participation because that is the corner stone of collaboration at work now.
It will be interesting for us to find how many times have we have felt genuinely happy just by participating at work recently. Just participating…. Not being louder or showing off our knowledge or succeeding in appearing to be smart or smarter than others in the room. How many times did we truly honestly participate at work ?
Once we find those moments, let us ask ourselves why we participated in those incidents and felt happy about that. Why did we not think of winning or losing. Why did we think we just had to be part of it…?
It is coincidental that today at work I had such a moment. I was just participating and I felt happy after that. Maybe I became slightly better that I was after that. I learned something new and something about me.
Now, the question is…..
how can we all be that kid who just loves to participate.. ? 😁
Penpositive 
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