After writing the exams a man went to a place of worship and prayed to God to make him pass the exams at least this time as he is failing for the past five years. This man is doing the same thing from the last five years. Writing the exam and praying to God. But somehow he never managed to clear the exams till now, or to put in other words God had failed in passing this guy.

On the results day of this year, he woke up in the morning and as usual prayed to God and went to see the results. These are Internet days, so he went to a near by Internet cafe and started entering his hall ticket number and of course chanting God’s name continuously and praying. To his surprise he failed even this time. Then he got frustrated and yelled at God and abused for not succeeding in passing him. Suddenly God appeared on the computer screen, looking frustrated, yes, even Gods can get frustrated. Then this guy out of anger asked God “why are you failing me every time?”. Then God opened his mouth and told him “with my power I can pass you even if you don’t write a single answer, but I cannot do anything if you write the hall ticket number wrong every time”.

Asking for help from God or higher power or whatever you call it, without doing the right things at the first step is a futile effort. We have to do the right things to get the right results. I know I am not that great to write all these self-help stuff, but many of us just fall into the comfort zones and expect something to happen without doing the basics correct. I feel no shame to confess here that I have done it many a times. And writing here makes this idea get deeper into my mind and helps me in finding when I do the basics wrong.

So next time when you write any exam make sure you enter the hall ticket number correctly.

Hope you liked it and do comment.

This is based on a story I heard from Sadhguru. I have varied it a little bit and written it here.