I read a witty definition of nostalgia recently: the feeling experienced on realization that the past and events in the past were not really as bad as they seemed, back then!!! I find this so convincing! It’s really so and I have realized it time and again. The best and easiest experience that each and every one of us would have gone through is that during our schooling, the current class would be the toughest ever for us, yet the same subjects and problems seem like a joke during the next year. It just goes to prove that our learning abilities are astounding. Studies prove that even brain cells stop growing in profusion after a certain age and then regression sets in but there are a great many examples of late bloomers all around us. It just means that there is hope for each and every one of us, whether we have been prodigiously talented or otherwise! Experience will eventually teach us the right things!

Talking about nostalgia and the description above, just spare a moment to think about the greatest of problems that dogged you during the last year or a couple of years back. Do they still bother you? Chances are nine out of ten that they don’t. (I’m not talking about the problem of a nagging wife or of receding hair. That is infact covered by the remaining one out of the ten cases!!!!) Yet, when we were initially confronted by these problems, many of us would have thought that they would be unsurmountable! What leads to this perception? Each and everyone of us has surmounted and gotten past problems that we previously believed to be unsolvable, yet we don’t seem to have faith in ourselves or our problem solving skills when confronted by the next ‘Major’ problem. In hindsight, if I had had the confidence that I would be able to surmount the problem, chances are high that I would have been able to solve the problem much earlier! I know for a fact that I have adopted the ‘Ostrich’ tactic, of burying my head in deep sand, running away or hiding from the problem before I have eventually solved it. And I have almost always solved it. What does that tell you? The next time I’m confronted by what seems to be a major problem, I’ll try to be more pragmatic about it and have more faith in myself and my own abilities. It can only help. What say?

By the way, today, a friend of mine who hated almost everybody at NCST and also quite a few things about NCST itself called me in the evening. He said that he was sorely missing NCST and that the picture of NCST that I had put up on my orkut page even brought a tear into his eye! I rest my case!