Frankly speaking, I had a great disliking for English during the formative years of life and never attempted to make any improvement even. I used to be so poor in spoken English, that, during my Engineering college days, I had always avoided mixing up with English speaking classmates.
Well, destiny had something else in mind for me. After passing out from the college, when I failed to write a job application in English, leading to a group of friends laughing at me in front of many others, I, for several hours, wept uncontrollably, but then, I decided to do something about it.
On that day, before falling asleep, I vowed to myself that I must learn to speak and write in English within three months to give those friends a fitting reply. First step in that direction was to subscribe to an English news paper, and then, I bought a Bengali-to-English dictionary.
For the next 3 months, without fail, I continued with a tireless effort of investing several hours a day on reading English newspapers, writing down the meaning of each and every word that I couldn’t understand and, finally, made every attempt to improve my ability to speak in English by talking to the wall of my bedroom for several hours.
It was a lonely fight with no help from any living being. But, I continued. My determination and efforts begun producing visible results, adding fuel to my endeavor for improving more and more. During those 3 months, I didn’t let anyone get a hint of what I had been after. Then, one fine morning, I offered to write the job application for one of my friends.
I still clearly remember his facial expression while reacting to my proposal with a sarcastic comment. Ignoring. However, I went ahead and tried my best to design an impacting cover letter and showed him the draft. One by one, all three of them read it and looked at my face with shear disbelief. And, at that point, I dropped another bombshell by initiating a verbal communication in English. They were stunned!
The desire to give a fitting reply to my friends’ neglect, motivated me to achieve something difficult if not impossible. Their criticism, instead of demotivating me, inspired me to look upon this obstacle as a challenge to overcome, and I did it.
The mission was accomplished and that success laid the foundation of a never-give-up attitude in life, which, since then, has remained with me up until now, and I wish, it remains, forever, as an integral part of my life.
Two and decades later, when I wrote my first article in late 2008 and published it on LinkedIn, one of the readers made a categorical statement that instead of wasting my time and energy on such attempts, I should go for fishing. It was like getting completely stripped down before a huge audience, as his comment was read by hundreds of renowned professionals from all over the world.
I agree that there were quite a few grammatical mistakes in that article. However, instead of pointing it out publicly, he could have let me know his observation privately. That’s how a civilized society is expected to function. But he decided otherwise, and it ultimately proved to be a blessing in disguise for me!
I don’t know what made him launch such a lethal but unusual attack on me, but I didn’t give up this time also. Apart from taking up a week-long grammar lesson from my elder daughter to improve my writing skills, I stayed focused on reading lots of articles from dozens of popular websites and kept posting more and more on my blog and on LinkedIn.
After a couple of months, the same person, who suggested fishing a better option than writing, became my 1st degree connection on LinkedIn and wrote a mail to me appreciating my improvements. Well, I must mention that he apologized to me as well.
Both these developments, in addition to a lot more that I’d share with you later, made my life worth living a thousand times. I must thank God for being so kind to me at times, and also ruthless - whenever I fail to live up-to his expectations on several occasions - perhaps inspiring me to wake up the sleeping giant within.
So, whenever someone laughs at you, whenever someone writes you off, saying that you’re no good, never retreat to a state of deep hibernation but bounce back with a vengeance to prove them wrong. People would always criticize you, jokingly or genuinely, whenever there’s an opportunity, but, you must turn it to your advantage, genuinely.
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