The Newspaper Battle

Before I go further, this post is not a write-up on which newspaper is the best or worst in the market and neither it engulfs any supreme or high court ruling involving any newspapers.

The word "battle" here, is not enough to explain my situation here. Well, to give a short background, I have been reading (at least trying to) a lot of newspaper lately. It includes both the paper form and the pixel form. My day starts with Economic Times. It builds on Times of India's e-paper and ends with Hindu. The class on Reading comprehension stressed a lot of reading editorials. So, I try to make sure that I read at least those. Now, what has happened within these few weeks can be deemed as both amazing and frustrating. My politically ignorant brain has suddenly developed a skill to detect the nuisances behind the manipulative comments by our politicians. A more close look into the economy of our country has helped me understand some aspects of budget and its terminology. My chauvinistic anti-government opinions are now misplaced with fact based and well informed judgments. Not only has my patience with reading reached a new height but also the knowledge gain is turning out to be helpful in igniting discussions with Ankit, my colleague, who has a good running knowledge of general finance. This new found ability to judge the actions of raising service taxes, custom duties and excises have changed me. Now, I don't waste much time in repenting my past actions, in fact, I don't get the time now. But, then what is the battle ?

Well, every coin has two sides, and unfortunately, there is another side to this rosy picture too. With so much information at hand, my intuitive part of the brain starts rejecting new information and becomes over confident. Instead of deep and inclusive reading, my brain starts the surface reading and this leads to dissatisfaction. Being someone who has to know every tiny detail of everything, cheating oneself is the biggest crime that I can commit. May be I am too hard on myself, but this is who I am. I like details, specifics, and to know that how the things add up to a bigger picture. Whenever I skip an article in the newspaper, I kick myself hard for not reading that. I become paranoid inside. "May be there was something very important which would be immensely useful later" - this is what every article brings to my mind. But realistically speaking, reading each and every word and article of a 20 odd page newspaper is no joke. I try to read most of them, but have managed an efficiency of only 30% till now. This is the battle. Trying to reach the full potential. One bad habit I have is that I prefer quick results, and hence the pressure on my mind is immense under such circumstances. The only way to reduce the pressure is confidence, and confidence can only be achieved when I perform well - not according to the world but according to me and my norms. Till then, the battle continues.