Today, CBSE, The central board of secondary education, has released the class 12th board exam results. According to the statistics available on the internet, we have achieved an overall pass percentage of 99.37 %. That’s an incredible high score, one we aren’t going to break for years, or dare I say, decades to come. And, so unlike many of your relatives or friends or neighbours or acquaintances, I won’t ask your result but I do offer my congratulations.

The CBSE did not conduct the exam this year. And so, though many of you might argue, and rightly so, this grading system wasn’t exactly fair- to those who worked hard throughout the year and didn’t get what they were capable of and to those who didn’t work at all but manage a very decent score, to those who had no access to digital media and to those who had every gadget at their disposal, to those who gave exams last year and to those who will give theirs next.

From the toppers to those who barely made it past the line, everyone do seem to have one thing one mind though. It could have been better. But now that it isn’t, I wish to ask what would have happened with that better result. For a day or two your parents would have been happy, treated you with gifts, but then the third day you would have done something to piss them off and things would have returned to normal. Your neighbours might have praised you in the beginning, but then hey would have found some other thing to bitch about you. Your friends would have been happy or jealous depending on what kind you have but then you would have went to separate colleges and those friends would have been long forgotten. In that new college, though, no one would have given a damn about your result. And this is how the desired ‘better’ result would have made no difference in your result, whatsoever.

Now, many of you might say that a better result means a better college, better career prospects. To all those I would say that it might give you a better kickstart but it certainly cannot dictate your future. Also, it isn’t the only way to kickstart your career . We are Gen-Z. We need not always need support. If you have talent, then I am sure by now you know that you can showcase it to a very large audience, a better one in many cases if you just go on the internet. From the top bollywood musicians to national as well as international public, your music travel oceans and producers. We have all heard ‘Anuv Jain’ or ‘When chai met toast’ or seen ‘Bhuvan Bam’, ‘Tanmay Bhatt’ or ‘Zakir Khan’. Love to cook? Ever heard of ‘Kavita’s Kitchen’. Love to dance? Go see ‘Naach’. We live in the era of talent. Talent and the courage to give it a go and to keep going is all you need. From google to amazon, the top recruiters visit your Github or codechef profile. Participating in international hackathons is just a click away. So, it isn’t as if just an exam hinders our career prospects.

And, at last, this exam was just that- an exam. If you disappointed yourself or your family or your teachers or anyone anywhere, do not worry my friend for you have lived atleast 16 years of your life and you have so many more to live. You have already disappointed them more times than you could count and you will disappoint them in the future, for I don’t know- a million more times, until that one day when you won’t.

Oh! and if you didn’t this time then kindly skip the first two lines of the previous paragraph and read again. It is an infinite loop, you end up disappointing someone with almost every activity (including yourself) until the day when you don’t and then you again do. And the loop repeats. So, why worry instead of preparing for the moment that is somewhere along the path you are currently traversing? That one moment of pride holds the burden of making up for all the disappointments you met along the way and holds the strength for all those you will meet in the future. So why not reduce the load?