What is yours will find you

 

What Is YoWhat Is Yours Will Find You

Not every disappointment is a blessing, but some only make sense much later.

“What is yours will find you.” I have always liked the saying. To me, it speaks of something we all eventually learn: we can work hard for what we want, but we cannot always decide how things will turn out.

It sounds comforting, but it can also be misunderstood. Some people take it as a reason to leave things to fate. If something is meant to happen, they believe it will happen anyway, so there is little point in working too hard towards it.

I have never seen life that way.

If you want something, you have to work for it. You have to prepare, take chances and put yourself forward. You cannot simply sit back and expect destiny to do the work for you. But effort has its limits too. Working hard does not guarantee that you will get the particular outcome you have in mind.

I have spent much of my working life on the other side of interview tables, interviewing teachers and leaders, and I have seen this many times. The person who wants the job most is not necessarily the person who gets it.

I remember a young teacher I once interviewed. She was bright, capable and extremely well prepared, but she wanted the job so badly that it seemed to get in the way. She had rehearsed her answers and was trying to give us what she thought we wanted to hear. In the process, we weren't really seeing her.

We didn't appoint her.

A year later, she applied again. She still wanted the job, but something had changed. She was more relaxed, answered honestly and wasn't afraid to admit when she didn't know something. She wasn't trying to be the perfect candidate. She was simply herself.

We appointed her.

It stayed with me because there is a difference between wanting something and needing it so badly that we become consumed by the outcome.

Perhaps we do this more often than we realise. We become convinced that a particular promotion, career, relationship or opportunity has to work out because we have invested so much in it. We start to confuse effort with entitlement.

Life doesn't always agree.

I learnt that lesson myself many years ago in Pune.

There was a time when I was quite sure I was about to become a principal. I wanted the job badly and believed I was ready for it. If I am being completely honest, I thought I deserved it. I had worked towards it and had begun to imagine myself in the role.

Then it didn't happen.

I was deeply disappointed. At the time, I could see only what I had lost and couldn't understand why something I had worked for and felt ready for had not come my way.

It was, although I didn't know it then, a turning point in my life.

Looking back now, I can see that had I become a principal in Pune at that particular time, the course of my career could have been very different. The opportunities that followed, the people I met and the journey that eventually brought me to Dubai might never have unfolded in quite the same way.

Sometimes what we thought was a disappointment was simply something whose significance we could not see at the time.

And don't I know that.

I have learnt not to romanticise disappointment. Not everything that goes wrong turns out to be a blessing, and some disappointments remain just that. But time has a way of changing our perspective. At the moment something happens, we see the event. Years later, we may begin to see where it led.

That has made me more comfortable with uncertainty. I still make plans, work hard and want things, but I am less convinced that I know exactly how my life should unfold.

Perhaps that is where fate or destiny has a place — not as an excuse for doing nothing, but as an acknowledgement that we are not entirely in charge.

We do what we can, then we live with what happens. Sometimes, it takes time to see the whole picture.

I think that is the more useful meaning of “What is yours will find you.” It doesn't mean everything we want will eventually be ours, nor does it mean every closed door is hiding something better. It simply reminds us that we cannot always judge something by the way it feels when it happens.

The life we eventually live is shaped by many things, including the things that didn't happen.

I know that because of Pune.

And I suspect most of us have a Pune of our own — a job we didn't get, an opportunity that passed us by, a relationship that ended or a plan that didn't work out as we had hoped.

At the time, we wondered why.

Years later, we may see it differently.

I certainly do.

I still don't know whether everything happens for a reason. But I have learnt that not everything has to make sense when it happens. Sometimes, you understand it only much later.urs Will Find You

Not every disappointment is a blessing, but some only make sense much later.

“What is yours will find you.” I have always liked the saying. To me, it speaks of something we all eventually learn: we can work hard for what we want, but we cannot always decide how things will turn out.

It sounds comforting, but it can also be misunderstood. Some people take it as a reason to leave things to fate. If something is meant to happen, they believe it will happen anyway, so there is little point in working too hard towards it.

I have never seen life that way.

If you want something, you have to work for it. You have to prepare, take chances and put yourself forward. You cannot simply sit back and expect destiny to do the work for you. But effort has its limits too. Working hard does not guarantee that you will get the particular outcome you have in mind.

I have spent much of my working life on the other side of interview tables, interviewing teachers and leaders, and I have seen this many times. The person who wants the job most is not necessarily the person who gets it.

I remember a young teacher I once interviewed. She was bright, capable and extremely well prepared, but she wanted the job so badly that it seemed to get in the way. She had rehearsed her answers and was trying to give us what she thought we wanted to hear. In the process, we weren't really seeing her.

We didn't appoint her.

A year later, she applied again. She still wanted the job, but something had changed. She was more relaxed, answered honestly and wasn't afraid to admit when she didn't know something. She wasn't trying to be the perfect candidate. She was simply herself.

We appointed her.

It stayed with me because there is a difference between wanting something and needing it so badly that we become consumed by the outcome.

Perhaps we do this more often than we realise. We become convinced that a particular promotion, career, relationship or opportunity has to work out because we have invested so much in it. We start to confuse effort with entitlement.

Life doesn't always agree.

I learnt that lesson myself many years ago in Pune.

There was a time when I was quite sure I was about to become a principal. I wanted the job badly and believed I was ready for it. If I am being completely honest, I thought I deserved it. I had worked towards it and had begun to imagine myself in the role.

Then it didn't happen.

I was deeply disappointed. At the time, I could see only what I had lost and couldn't understand why something I had worked for and felt ready for had not come my way.

It was, although I didn't know it then, a turning point in my life.

Looking back now, I can see that had I become a principal in Pune at that particular time, the course of my career could have been very different. The opportunities that followed, the people I met and the journey that eventually brought me to Dubai might never have unfolded in quite the same way.

Sometimes what we thought was a disappointment was simply something whose significance we could not see at the time.

And don't I know that.

I have learnt not to romanticise disappointment. Not everything that goes wrong turns out to be a blessing, and some disappointments remain just that. But time has a way of changing our perspective. At the moment something happens, we see the event. Years later, we may begin to see where it led.

That has made me more comfortable with uncertainty. I still make plans, work hard and want things, but I am less convinced that I know exactly how my life should unfold.

Perhaps that is where fate or destiny has a place — not as an excuse for doing nothing, but as an acknowledgement that we are not entirely in charge.

We do what we can, then we live with what happens. Sometimes, it takes time to see the whole picture.

I think that is the more useful meaning of “What is yours will find you.” It doesn't mean everything we want will eventually be ours, nor does it mean every closed door is hiding something better. It simply reminds us that we cannot always judge something by the way it feels when it happens.

The life we eventually live is shaped by many things, including the things that didn't happen.

I know that because of Pune.

And I suspect most of us have a Pune of our own — a job we didn't get, an opportunity that passed us by, a relationship that ended or a plan that didn't work out as we had hoped.

At the time, we wondered why.

Years later, we may see it differently.

I certainly do.

I still don't know whether everything happens for a reason. But I have learnt that not everything has to make sense when it happens. Sometimes, you understand it only much later.