These days, it’s not often that my son, Arka comes to me for help in his studies. He is in mid-teens and has grown a semblance of moustache (oh, how quickly time flies!). He also keeps his own accounts and decides what to spend where (thank heavens, his needs are still minimal). But these are not the reasons why he doesn’t need help in studies. It’s just that he knows he can do them himself.

Yet this wasn’t the case even 9 months back. Arka was never a self-starter so far studies are concerned. He always felt that unless the home-tutor covered a topic, he wouldn’t venture into it even if it was already taught at the school. Days passed on and the 4 hours the home tutor spent every week proved too less a time to accommodate all that Arka would need to be taught.

Arka wouldn’t care less. Each day he would glance at the pending lessons only to push them aside for later. I could almost see an impenetrable, invisible barrier gradually building up between him and his lessons. I talked to him, cajoled him, but he remained confirmed that he simply didn’t have it in him to understand a new lesson all by himself. He would pity his inability to come to terms, but fail to pull up his socks. Inevitably, his school results nosedived and he was left groping in the dark.

The first turn of events came a year back when we shifted our house to a new locale. His home tutor wouldn’t travel the extra distance, and so after a long time Arka was without a tutor. He frantically looked for a new tutor, but none agreed because it was already mid-session and his board exams were only few months away.

For the first time, Arka started studying all by himself. He fixed routines and followed them diligently. If he didn’t understand a topic, he would come to me and I made sure that he first studied it before coming to me. In the end, all his efforts bore fruit as they had to, and he came with flying colors in his board exams.

Most of us face such dilemma in our lives every now and then. We would rather prefer someone’s help than trust our ability. We’d chain our power to perform without knowing how else we might improve. We’d blame others for our own failings, trying valiantly to spare ourselves from feeling guilty.

Yet for all we know, we also have the power to transform. As Arka has shown, it is never late to turn around. Only that you have to realize that once you start traveling, your distance too starts reducing. Make a move NOW, and who knows the future may all be yours. After all, haven’t we heard the adage, “Fortune favors the brave!”

Today, Arka is a confident boy, knowing well he can achieve when he sets out to do it. Does he need a home tutor in his new class? He waves away the suggestion. As I write this piece, he smiles indulgently, “Dad, the target isn’t really that far.” Whoever says it is? Not him, not hopefully you.

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