We Indians give too much importance to English language, if we do not have good vocabulary people can make fun of us. I studied in an English medium school, but yet my English was not very good because the standard of education in that school was very low, so my grammar was always out of place, my accent was not clean and yes confidence level to talk in English language was zero. I did clear my job interview somehow, and managed to get a job. But in my work place there were people who made fun of me for my English and the accent I spoke in. Of course, this was many years back when I had just started working. I would feel embarrass at times because of my poor hold over the language. So, I started working on improving myself. I was improving but yet it was not perfect, and I would feel very conscious.
Then from my work place I was sent for an international assignment. Though my English was not good but my work was very good and for that reason I was sent to Zurich to complete a project. When I went there, I was quite taken back because lot of people did not speak English there, and they had no confidence issues like I had. I was thinking to myself, why is there so much fuss about this language in some parts of the world and mockery if you are not good at it.
From Zurich on one of the weekends I went to Basel and over there I had major challenge communicating. In those days there were no mobile phones nor any google maps. So everywhere I went I had the paper map with me and I would ask people around, but here I had a challenge in finding a person who could guide me in English.
When I returned back home from this trip, I dropped all my heavy baggage of not being good with the language and feeling embarrassed for the way I spoke. I started feeling ok with myself and felt no need to push myself. Gradually with work communications my language got better and I also got into the Training division where I would conduct trainings for including the senior level people. It was a big accomplishment for me for being so poor in the language to getting into leadership trainings.
But what I learned in this whole experience is that it is not required to be perfect in everything, It's ok to be improper and imperfect. Knowing everything perfectly is not the end of the world. For me it was the language, but then it can be anything. Till date some of my old friends from that first job when we meet they make fun of me for the way I spoke, and I am fine with it, because when I look back at my journey I know what all I have accomplished and I have no need to prove it, whereas some of them who make fun of me, I see them still stuck up in their old jobs with not much of progress made in their life and that shows the difference.
Which also made me realize that some times a flaw can be a blessing in disguise to improve in life and to achieve big things.
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