🕒 09 Jul 2026 at 12:32 Hours
“The Only Choice That Is Truly Yours”
Our final session of Financial Management at IPMX ended in an unexpected way.
Instead of concluding with balance sheets, valuation models, or capital structure, Professor Vikas Srivastava left the classroom with a reflection on choice.
It was one of those rare moments when a lecture quietly transformed into a life lesson.
I don’t claim to reproduce his words exactly. What follows is my attempt to capture the idea that stayed with me long after the class ended.
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There is a particular kind of ambition that gathers in an MBA classroom.
Everyone sitting here has already won several difficult battles. Entrance examinations. Promotions. Interviews. Years of work that culminated in a single admission letter. The room is filled with people who have spent a decade optimizing for consequential decisions.
And yet, the most memorable moment from that classroom wasn’t about strategy, finance, or leadership.
It was a simple observation.
“We spend far too much of our lives celebrating choices that were never entirely ours.”
At first, it sounds almost unfair.
Surely getting into a program like IPMX is a choice. You studied. You sacrificed. You worked hard.
But look closer.
The examination paper wasn’t your choice.
The interviewer wasn’t your choice.
The thousands of candidates you competed against weren’t your choice.
The economy that shaped hiring wasn’t your choice.
Even the opportunities that allowed you to prepare were distributed unevenly long before you arrived.
Our effort matters. It always will.
But effort exists inside systems that are far larger than ourselves.
Somewhere along the way, we begin telling ourselves a simpler story—that every milestone was the inevitable result of our decisions.
Perhaps that’s what the ego does.
It edits complexity into certainty.
It turns probability into personal credit.
The more I thought about it, the more unsettling another realization became.
If the biggest milestones of our lives are only partially ours, then what is fully ours?
The answer is surprisingly small.
Every morning, before the world begins making demands, we receive one decision that belongs entirely to us.
Who will I be today?
Not what title will I earn.
Not what company will hire me.
Not what salary I will negotiate.
Just this:
What kind of colleague will I be today?
What kind of leader?
What kind of learner?
What kind of human being?
Unlike admissions, promotions, or markets, no one else gets to answer those questions.
Watching the IPMX journey unfold, another pattern becomes visible.
The moment one summit is reached, the search for validation quietly begins.
Was IPMX the right decision?
Maybe the best placement in a great company will answer that.
Then the next promotion.
Then compensation.
Then the role after that.
Life slowly becomes an endless chain of decisions seeking justification from the next decision.
The horizon keeps moving.
Validation becomes a destination that never arrives.
Perhaps we’ve misunderstood where a meaningful life is built.
Not in the handful of big decisions that happen every few years.
But in the thousands of ordinary mornings that almost nobody remembers.
Character is not formed by admission letters.
It is formed by repeated daily choices.
The meeting where you choose integrity over convenience.
The difficult conversation where you choose honesty over comfort.
The colleague you decide to help when no one is watching.
The work you complete with care, even when recognition is unlikely.
These decisions rarely appear on résumés.
Yet they quietly become the architecture of a life.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
The choices we celebrate most are often the ones we controlled the least.
The choices we overlook are the ones that shape us the most.
Maybe the question is not whether IPMX—or any major life decision—was the right choice.
Maybe the better question is whether tomorrow morning, when the day begins, you’ll become the kind of person capable of making every future decision a little wiser than the last.
That choice is still yours.
Every single morning.
🕒 19 May 2026 at 01:14 Hours
So, I nominated myself for the e-cell committee at my college and had a lot of fun. I did a lot of cool stuff - specifically designing a survey and getting a pulse of the batch regarding the perception of the entrepreneurship cell and then designing solutions around those responses. I also unknowingly created a catchphrase while designing the survey, which ultimately led to me printing a t-shirt with that quote. At the end, I lost the election. It very disappointing because it seemed like I caught the interest of the batch really well and held the attention during the pitch. But now I am learning to move on. It was fun. Maybe I'll write a separate post about it.
But I think just putting yourself out there publicly, knowing there’s a chance you might lose, already says a lot about a person :)
🕒 14 May 2026 at 04:47 Hours
Set up my Apple automation shortcut for status updates :)
🕒 14 May 2026 at 02:56 Hours
I know, i know. I said i'll be consistent. Koshish jaari hai. A lot of things happened over the past year:
- i got married :)
- i got into a great business school - IIM Lucknow's 1 year residential MBA (IPMX). MBA has been living as a quiet dream since 2018, so i am glad i could get into a business school. :)
- back to learning mode: i am knee deep into being an AI generalist. Lot of stuff going on there.
I will write about everything in my blog posts. Stay tuned! :)
🕒 16 July 2025 at 20:23 Hours
Recap of the month that went by!
- Me and my fiance (i still feel giddy calling her fiance - i will write a separate post on our whirlwind of a story of how we met and got engaged to be married :)) went to our first ever trip to Goa with our lovely friends!
It was the best time. Goa in monsoons is really something else. We spent the days lounging and exploring hidden beaches and waterfalls in northern most part of Goa and spent the nights at our airbnb - drinking, dancing and talking endlessly.
- I hired a personal trainer and finally started working out. It's been a good 2 weeks now.
- I am finally getting down to a routine. I wake up by 5:45 AM and get my meditation and goal setting done by 6:45 AM. I leave for the gym by 7:15 AM and come back by 9:15 AM. I then start my GMAT studies by 10 AM which goes on the entire day - at least i am trying to. It's been difficult but i am determined to make the best of my days.
🕒 16 July 2025 at 20:17 Hours
aargh..it's been a month since i actively blogged. That is definitely going to change. My goal is to be a better writer and this blog will help me doing just that. Better writing equals better critical thinking skills and that is what i intend to improve. To consciously write more, i am now employing a writing tool known as freewriting. It's interesting really - freewriting is a writing strategy developed in 1973. It's where you write continuously for a set time without worrying about grammar, spelling, or anything like that. A pure stream of consciousness. I have been freewriting for 2 days now and it has led me to explore really interesting themes to write.
🕒 17 June 2025 at 23:57 Hours
Bearblog uses Markdown syntax and i am still getting used to it - its actually fun. I managed to learn a bit of CSS and coded a easy markdown editor for my bearblog dashboard. I wanted something like a Microsoft Word Document - and the final product does that beautifully.
🕒 17 June 2025 at 18:17 Hours
Feeling good about progress. Created /status page like mgx.me/status. Will try to update this daily like a running log.
🕒 16 June 2025 at 22:05 Hours
Wrapped up GMAT Quant session. Getting more confident with number properties. CSS debugging was a pain, but satisfying once fixed.