Competition - Natural versus prepared!!!

Competition - Natural versus prepared!!!
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Well this is just one thought that I got while I was walking back from the cafeteria after my lunch. Some of my friends were talking about writing exams like GRE, CAT, GMAT ans things like it. Even I had given CAT and got GDPI calls for 3 of them. But this thought which I got - naturalness versus competitive preparedness, is not one that i am used to.

This is a competitive world no doubt about that, we see competition right from school days till we find job, and even after that. We see children in pre-university colleges, going to tutions after theirs long hours of class through out the day. Especially when the students are in 12^th I see that they don't have a break, the preparation starts some 2 months before the actual college classes begins, the students are made to go through a rigorous schedule and don't find time for anything else. Then there are the competitive exams which these students write. They are get to compete on much larger scale and those who will make it though these exams gets a graduation course of his/her choice.

In all this process of preparation for the exams, we are continuously strained by the time bound process. We have to say, wake up at 5:30am, then slog the whole day and then get back to bed at 12 mid night. We do this for one year and then we get into a graduation course that would later on guarantee us a job, and a profession. But in all this we find that we just prepare our-self for the competitive exam, and just get trained for the particular purpose. We don't follow this system further until we have another competition else where.

Well when I say "natural" in the above sentences, I only mean not being explicitly prepared for this purpose, but this naturalness might be a result of long term effort. What this means is, you work continuously, not concerned about the course of events/competition etc., you work to increase your skill set and there by just make it natural - liking what you do.

Here are a few things that curtails me and get me thinking as to why its better to make the thing natural than just be prepared for it is the effect this preparedness gets in. Assume you enter into a prestigious institute like IIT with a solid preparation that was overlooked & guided by a coaching class. When you enter into such an institute and find all the people coming in there with just some prepared course material and not naturally good in the subject (he has not understood the subject on his own and just come in with some knowledge about how to solve what is given), we cant find a lot people getting into to understand the subject of the course and the basis for innovation - science, takes a hard hit. We find today a lot of people who could not make it into the engineering colleges for their graduation go and join the pure science stream. The result being that we have very few innovations in the pure science related field of late. We have to emphasise on naturalness and ensure that this be the path that people follow, so as to benefit the long run objectives of improvement rather than immediate gains.

After all these though, i am slowly getting into being more bent towards the natural process. I don't want to be spontaneous for success alone, I feel like relishing what I do. I want to make my gamut of capabilities large enough to encompass the challenge of competition more easily. I believe in sharpening the axe even when I don't have to cut wood. Working toward making life and the challengers that I face be just a process of evaluation for the much larger concept of making things natural.

If I have to explain what I mean to say in the above paragraph, I would get it clear like this. I am generally work with words, solve crossword puzzles, and try all the games related to vocabulary, just because I like the language and want to know more about it. I work on this continuously. If some day choose to write GRE, the preparation for the vocabulary section of the exam would not need any extra effort. Its just natural for me to answer this. I would be in a much better mental state to answer the questions, than if I had prepared specifically for this purpose - in which case, the pressure of the exam can get me to mark a wrong answer even if I know the correct one. If you read regularly to improve you G.K and not for any competitive interview, you are definitely more better off.

Though the natural process of preparation, which takes time and effort, and doesn't seem to give immediate results, except that you do it for your own satisfaction. In the long run, this naturalness give lot more preparedness to face situations, a better understanding of the subject, making it more rewarding.

Well I don't mean to rule out that small term preparation is bad, or not useful at all. All I want to tell up is that, this short term is a good short cut to success but it will not carry a long way until we convert this short-term preparation to be more expanding and encompassing. We don't get to like all that we do, true, but we have to prepare our-self for the situation... in such cases we have to take to the short term preparation. But we can keep doing this short preparation but have to make it natural if the same situation recurs. The basic point is we have to strike the right balance between the two.

The most important way of converting this short term preparations into naturalness is by converting them into hobbies, this is the easiest of ways. Other than that we can start off continuing with the same routine that we would have developed in the days of intense preparation, and then blossom with the same routine to experiment and know the beauty of the each of the subjects that may be involved. These are the smoothest way to transform from the short term preparation to long term natural preparedness...

Well I see that for quick gains and results in the fast paced world of today, there is little that we can do to prevent short term preparedness towards competition. We are happy being able to perform on the particular day and not care about how well we understand and perform. But the only point that is repeatedly coming to my mind is, how long can you survive on something that is manipulated and not completely integrated and made your own feature? I don't disagree that there are people who follow the short-term progress but understand the subject as well but those are very rare cases.

Personally I still advocate being on a "natural" course rather than the gimmicks of a short term preparation... I have decided that I will adopt this system from now on.... may be the turning point of my life... cant say.... I still see sense in this method... What do you think?