9 yr old - Finding her Ikigai

Sometimes you spend an entire lifetime trying to understand what your true purpose is and what value you are trying to bring into your existence. Finding what really lights you up and getting into a flow of creativity and creation is not a straight-line path. As you come into existence, barely you can walk a few steps and utter a few words, your educational journey begins which rather than expanding your horizons, starts limiting your beliefs, ideas, and Ethos. Today I am going to share a story of my daughter Lakkshaya who is 9 years old now and her journey towards finding her Ikigai and how it has given her the confidence, clarity, and happiness from being a small confused kid.

Till the age of two, she was just able to blabber a few short words, stepping into the Kindergarten still holding onto my strings, unable to bear any separation. Questions on why she is not able to go beyond a few words were already disturbing many. Luckily her younger sister arrived and brought the magic of companionship with her and I don’t remember when ideas and expressions started flowing freely without us putting any effort. Slowly as she stepped into the role of elder sister, she started becoming more independent.

Education is a big equalizer. Her initial years in the school were not that great. She was a very naughty kid in the class and I was constantly given feedback that she did not understand what was being taught in the class. Until the age of 6, she was hardly able to either read or write fluently. As parents, we were totally occupied with our careers with little attention we could spare to our education. I don’t believe in exerting any force to align a kid with the curriculum. Raising Happy kids, eager to explore and not think about success, failure, and results is rather important. We all realize our journeys are not the same, but we expect the same answers to the list of questions from a class of students. We all understand this age is all about finding solutions and asking the right questions to find the solutions rather than finding the answers. I have always found it more difficult to ask the right questions and rather easy to get the answers once you know your questions. Between Corona and the ineffectiveness of offline schools in imparting online education, I came across K8school. They were in much more control of the entire classroom and could at least impart some value in an online setting, which I earlier failed to see any school doing so. 

It was not an easy transition for a child of 6 years especially because Lakkshaya was still not able to read, write, or talk proficiently. But she was overwhelmed with the love of her teachers. I will be eternally grateful to her teacher Ms. Deepali Khanna for transforming her. That's the power of a teacher. After 3 years, even today she starts her day by seeing her picture. The first year, Lakkshaya just tried to hold herself together to get through the session but at the end of her second semester, I realized she was able to read, write, and talk quite well to carry herself to the next grade. She fell in love with creativity under the love and care of her teachers. She didn't go to any offline tuitions or I would have spent more than 10 mins a day on her education. She found her way of finding the solution to her problems, managing her submissions, emailing her assignments, talking with the tech support team to resolve any technical issues, and so on. Her school is still only for 4 hours, giving her all the time in the world to explore her creativity and passion. In between all this transformation, she was spending more and more time every day creating something new. Whether it's poster color, oil color, watercolor, acrylic colors, or molded clay, every day with her tiny hands she would bring something to life which would give her immense happiness. My role as a parent was just to provide her with the tools and accessories and clean up the mess :). She was finding her Ikigai.

Within three years, today she is a much more confident girl who can create complex content videos, create scratch games and scratch stories, get into the flow and create art pieces and drawings, read and communicate very fluently in her classroom, and manage her entire studies 100% independently, and also talk in Spanish to some extent. And I believe it might be the story of all the students in her classroom. The more and more you can get into your state of flow, the more you can become your true self. She found her mentor in Shikha Ma'am who is so in line with her interests. She reached out to her and coordinated her online admissions and sessions and everyday, I can see her in rapt attention not for 30 mins to 1 hour but for 3-4 hours together, trying to dismantle, unravel and unleash her creativity. She would spend hours together cleaning her Gauche palette and getting herself ready for her next creative milestone. No Competition, just pure joy and happiness. She can spend hours putting up a scratch game together or creating an animated story, creating a script, maintaining her YouTube channel, coordinating with her sister for a voiceover, and editing a complex video.

As she stepped into her first life competition in Namo Chashak in Dombivali yesterday, even before she finished her painting or won any external validation, many spotted her in flow working flawlessly in control of her palette and questions on which is her school. I don't recall how many people asked me about her school or complimented on her creation. It's a testimony of years of persistence in doing something that gives you happiness. There are miles to go before she finds the larger purpose behind her Ikigai, but today, it is changing her in innumerable ways and she is finding her happiness in small ways without any external validation. K8 School has been a catalyst, an accelerator to the young mind, without any pressure or punishment, she has sailed so far. I wish all the schools let the kids explore and spend time on things they truly love and reduce the academic pressure, which anyway AI can help you find the known answers.