The man with the silver cup.

Before I begin, let me introduce myself. Hi, my name is Tanmay and I am an 18-year-old entrepreneur. I am from Pushkar and I have been raised by a strong single mother who is proud of who I am today. Today I will be telling you about an incident that changed my entire life and made me who I am today. Without this awakening, I doubt I would have my 10/10 muscular body, my loving partner, or my success in my business. So let's begin our story.

It's been 3 years since this incident took place but I still remember it like it happened just yesterday. I was the kind of teenager who used to get bullied for being ugly. I had a lot of insecurities about myself and I always wanted to skip school. I used to blame my parents and the things I had to go through (child trauma, money, etc) for getting bullied.

When I turned 15 I started dating and I was struggling on getting any girls. All this made me feel so small and I felt like a total loser. The boys in my class especially the popular ones used to avoid me and I used to feel jealous of them without knowing them personally. Gym videos, motivational speeches, affirmations, self-improvement videos, books, etc were all useless for me because after 2-3 days I used to be BACK on the same couch on which I was watching these 'improvement' videos with a packet of chips and a bottle of coke. I constantly got the urge to change and to become better but for some reason, I was not able to put myself together and do it. I was unhappy with my life.

One day, my mom was getting ready to attend a concert of some famous musical band and she asked me to join her. I was feeling a bit lazy but I decided to go with her anyway as there was nothing better to do. Once we arrived at the venue, I decided to roam around the place a little bit. The concert was held on an open ground. It was 8 P.M. and as I was walking around the ground I noticed an old year, probably in his 80s or something, just throwing a silver cup in the air and trying to catch it. The old man was wearing nothing but a dirty old rope and was running barefoot on the ground trying to catch his silver cup. This man compared to me, had nothing, no clothes, no mobile, not even a bed, and here he was enjoying himself and laughing like a little child when he couldn't catch his silver cup. He was playing around, jumping, and laughing like a little 5-year-old child who doesn't know anything but it just wants to have fun. Many people were watching him from afar including me but, he was unbothered by all this. All he was doing was having fun.

Once I returned home, I felt a strong sense of gratitude within me. I had clothes, friends, a caring mother, good food, water to drink, and even a bed to sleep on. I thought "If a man like him who has nothing but a cup and a rope is so happy with his life then why do I feel so miserable with my life?" and THEN the realization hit me... This man was at peace in his mind. He never thought about other people's opinions about him, his clothes, his behavior, his laugh, or anything. He only cared about what truly mattered to him, having fun and that's exactly what he did. After this incident, I practiced self-gratitude and understood that I truly am gifted, and blaming and complaining does nothing but spread negativity which in turn enters our mind and makes us feel even more negative. Since that day, I started my self-improvement journey for MYSELF, not others. I started to work out to be fit and strong for I not to impress girls, I started reading self-help books for MYSELF not to show others, and I started doing things without CARING for others' opinion.

By this story, all I want to say is that don't care what other people think of you when you want to do something for yourself and that at the end of the day, what matters is YOU.