Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.
I came across this incredibly relevant African proverb in Thomas L. Friedman’s famous book The World is Flat. He however used this as an anecdote to emphasize his point, and I couldn’t move further without reading it again a few times. This I feel is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution put forth as simple and blunt as it could be. Unless you brace yourself well enough to get your prey, nature will make sure you fade away - and it applies on everyone.
In this season of Boards and competitive exams results, its relevance becomes starker. If one is not mentally able enough to out-smart the other thousands of competitors he will waste away the opportunity and the efforts in the run up to it. Amazingly, our lives are ruled by this prey-predator contest played out each day in the distant wilderness.
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