Awaken The Lion In Us

Mukund is writing 10th class exams. Today is mathematics paper. 

Mom: All the best, beta. Rock the exam.

Mukund: okay mom. 

He goes to the exam hall and on receiving the question paper, he starts writing it, and just before 30 minutes of the end, bit paper is given. He is going through it. 

At one question, before the thinking process could complete, he placed a tick to the wrong answer. With that, he misses two other questions. He finishes the paper and reaches home. 

Mom: How was the exam??

Mukund(disappointed): yeah, wrote well. 

Mom senses the disappointment, sits near him, puts her hand on his head, and asks what the matter is.

Mukund: Mom, I made a mistake. I wrote the main paper well but in bit paper, at one question, I was thinking and before I tick the right answer, I fumbled and ticked the wrong one and with that, I missed two more bits. 

What is more, bothering me is not that I missed bits, but the haste that made me do this. I don’t want to repeat this but don’t know what to do?

Mom: regarding the exam, you can’t do anything, but in the case of haste, you can do a lot. 

Mukund(with a surprised expression): What??

Mom: Be like a lion. You will never face this problem again. 

Mukund: how is it related?? 

Mom: Did you ever observe how a lion walks in the forest?? It takes some steps, stops, and looks in all the directions and continues walking. After some 5 to 6 steps, it repeats the same thing. 

Do you know what it does?? It assesses after every 5 steps that the path it has taken is safe or not and continues the journey. 

Mukund: so??

Mom: Before attempting anything, make sure you have checked all the options, then the only attempt. Every once in a while, stop… check what you are doing and proceed. 

Mukund: Why only lion??

Mom: the lion is the only animal that does this and let me tell you this is how a leader is supposed to be. The lion is a natural leader.

Mukund feels much better after his conversation with mom and watches a walking lion. 

He writes the second paper on mathematics the next day very well and he reminds himself a picture of a lion walking and takes deep breaths and finishes bit paper super cool. He comes home energetic.

Mukund: Mom, I nailed the paper today. He hugs mom and thanks to her for the conversation the other day. 

Mom smiles.