I have always been a firm believer in the idea that people around you, and people you spend your time with have a lot to teach you; irrespective of what background, age group, culture, notions, and perspectives they come from.

What this has done over the years is that it has very largely moved my intentions of being the smartest person in the room to being the dumbest person in the room, because when you feel like you know nothing in a room full of people; you become a voracious learner who is just grasping every bit of information coming her way.

I speak a lot less now and listen a lot more. I observe a lot more now and react a lot less. It was not easy, this shift took a lot, thanks to conditioning where you are told that if you don’t have a “voice” you don’t have an “opinion”; so to suddenly tell yourself that sometimes you can have an opinion and still choose to not have a voice over it, was in all honesty hard. I have still not aced the process, it is still a work in progress. But that’s a story for another day.

What this is about today, is about the people I share my life with on an everyday basis. The people who teach me things by just living their routines and doing their own things. Every once in a while they teach me something new, sometimes it is resilience, sometimes patience, sometimes grit, other times hard work and persistence. Sometimes it is love and how to be better at it or embrace it and other times it is acceptance of a person, a situation, or a circumstance.

My recent learning happens every day and is a little too heartwarming, in retrospection. There is a toddler who comes home every morning for his regular activity class with my mother, and there is a plethora of things he does on an everyday basis. Some things are very new to him, and some things are routine. These also include being introduced to concepts for the first time ever in his life on some days.

While all of this happening, I am usually getting ready for work, either having breakfast or making coffee thinking about this new feature I will have to write about, or what numbers will today’s email marketing campaign show; and subconsciously observing this kid navigate his way through a picture book trying to correlate what Bruno and Pepper are doing today, or sort shapes and recognise which block do they belong to. Try and recognize alphabets and numbers and giggle very loudly if he gets any of these things right. Mind you, that’s a considerable cognitive load for a 2-and-a-half-year-old toddler.

Both he and I finish our respective tasks at almost the same time every day and he is more than willing to leave for his school with me while I leave for the office; and when it is time to say goodbye to my mother, he turns back to her, smiles, gives her a hug and says “Malli osta!” which means, “I will come again!” and when we get off the lift, he wishes me, “Have a great day!” and walks towards his car to head to school.

His “Malli osta” now to me, has become a reminder of resilience and the zeal to show up again and do challenging things that I might have never known or done before because no matter how difficult his hour is at our home with all the new things he does and discovers, he still gathers himself up at the end of it and manages to smile and say that to my mother, and he is 1/10th of my age. I fail at that on most days.

One not-so-good conversation, task, meeting, moment, or any situation in a day, and my “Malli osta!” is out of the window for a good 3-4 business days. Then there is this toddler who says it every day without fail and shows up to greet us the next day with the same energy, smiles and chuckles.

It blows my mind to think about it and it is very heartwarming to witness it firsthand every day. Hopefully, I learn to practice it soon myself.

Until then, malli osta!