Making me feel small

Minimum salary of IIM graduate is about a crore per anum. If the wisdom on the street is to be believed, that is. Thanks to sensational and false media coverage over the years, in part fuelled by the IIMs themselves, average Natthu in India thinks that being Crorepati is a norm. For people with access to reality, things couldn’t be more different (and hilarious). We are still searching for that mythical invisible Crorepati amidst us. It’s true, no doubt, that average remuneration packages for students of top colleges are higher than those of students of smaller or less well known colleges, yet they are not astronomical and are pittance compared to what people think they earn. It’s all about perception.

That brings us to next topic. If you want to make a successful person feel embarrassed about his achievement, what should you do? Oh, just compare him to even more successful person. So if I am proud of my 95% in a test or happy about two weeks' training opportunity in London, how do you make me feel bad? Just casually ask me if I got 99%. What will I say? I will sighs and say, no I got less. Of course, if you had asked if I got 90% then I will proudly declare that no, I got more. You might as well mention that two weeks is such ridiculously small time period that it's laughable.

I think it makes sense to underestimate achievements of others when talking to them so that to give them opportunity to correct upward. It’s not only civilized but also polite and positivity inducing. Appears that many people just don’t get this. Combine this with above false perception and I am left wondering what did I achieve after years of work and studies?