Being Responsible

You are the way you are because you chose to be what you are. No one forced you to be in a particular way. It was after all a way of being chosen by you and no one else. You may argue that I am “this” because that – ‘thing happened to me’, ‘person said me to do so’, ‘person did such & such thing to me’, ’I was helpless’, ‘luck did not favour me’, ‘situation was like that’ and ‘what not’… But at the end of day you ultimately have to take responsibility for your actions and also your state of being.

At times the actions we take are ex tempore. We may not even have a fair enough idea of the results our actions will lead to. We act in a flash of second. But still the fact remains that those were our actions and we and only we are responsible for the result that follows. Similar is the case of inaction. If you did not act upon a situation for any reason what so ever, you owe the responsibility.

Casting the responsibility of your state of being upon ‘someone’ or ‘something’ out there won’t do any good to you. Whether you are happy, sad, joyous, upset…. You solely are responsible. You are happy because you chose to be happy and similar suit follows for everything else.
You are not upset because of someone somewhere did something to you. It’s you who expected X and when X did not occur you became upset. A cricket fan is upset when India loses a match because s/he expects India to win. Had the expectation of win not been there, the upset would not have been there. One may argue that there is nothing wrong in expectations. True, there is nothing wrong or right in expecting. But then this very Expectation leads to Upsets which no man would enjoy & you are responsible for expecting.

No one can make you happy, you have to be happy. It’s not easy right – to turn a blind eye to what is happening around you and still be happy. Agreed it’s not easy but then is there any other choice. It’s not about partying out when things around you are gloomy. It’s about choosing to be happy rather than being upset.
There are few things about which you can’t do anything. Your boss will be the way he is and so will be your wife. You can’t change people. Each being is different and they have right to be different. The choice is yours – “accept the way they are” or “make your own life miserable by thinking about changing them all the time”
Ultimately whether you are happy or otherwise depends entirely upon you and you solely are responsible for what happens to you.

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Thanks for reading. Please do not construe the above write up as any piece of advice in any manner whatsoever.

Tacts 4 Tax

Tax - Be it direct or its counterpart, as a subject makes things for CA aspirants difficult more often than not. The sheer volume of the Text book one buys for Direct Tax itself is life threatening. You need strong hands to hold it. The plethora of Sections, sub-sections & clauses followed my equal number of amendments, some logical, some otherwise don’t make things easy. And finally there is a risk of redundancy once DTC goes live.

While I was preparing for PE II, everyone whom I spoke to emphasised quoting of sections in answer sheets along with a caveat that if a section is wrongly quoted, you lose all the marks. That was quite risky. I had huge troubles in remembering sections of Business Law, DT and IDT (in finals), forget the subsections. I somehow managed feed my mind with some section numbers which I thought were important and didn’t even make an effort to remember the others. I considered (at that time) the exercise of remembering sections a sheer waste of time.

I would have hardly quoted any section in Taxation paper of PE II. I quoted a couple of Section Numbers in DT of final and did not quote any in the IDT paper. Also there were 6 case laws asked in the examination and I did not quote a single Case Law name in my answer sheet. I wrote the concepts, logic, gave proper reasoning and conclusion. I did not fare that bad in all these papers. The scores were decently good.

This is not to discourage students from remembering sections. If someone can conveniently remember section numbers, please do. These will earn you brownie points and would be really relevant for your score. Everything you write counts.But if you just cant remember them, you need not break head on them.

Good Luck

Its Exam time folks!!!

Almost all students must be in revision mode by this time. The last few days approaching the exams will play a very crucial role in your exams. It is important that you don’t let things go off your control. This is the time for finishing touches to your preparation.

Don’t try to start some new topic at this time. Remember its time to build up on what you have prepared till date. Make a revision schedule for each subject and stick to it. Identify the topics which need more attention during revision. Some topics may appear to be new again though it might be your third or fourth reading but that is completely fine. It happens with almost everyone given the vast syllabus.

It is always advisable to take up a mock exam for each subject to assess your exam preparedness. Those who are writing final exam for the first time must necessarily take up some of the model tests as about two years would have elapsed since you wrote your last exam. It is very important to be in exam mode and have some practice before you take up the exams.

This is not the time to prepare notes for exams. I have seen some students hurryingly prepare notes in the last week before the exams. I personally feel that the last minute notes would not be of much assist for preparation. You may not even have time to refer the notes again.

Quick reads of compilations, suggested answers, RTP and formulae (for MAFA, Costing etc) is important. This will tone your preparation with an examination approach. Even a couple of questions from these would assist you in readily scoring 10-15 marks.

Students must avoid talking about their preparation with others during the last couple of weeks before the exams. One may be threatened with the level of preparation done by others and lose confidence on their own preparation. Believe in your own preparation and focus on what you have done rather than focusing on what others have done. You need be cent percent perfect to crack a CA exam.

Keep your revision simple..