Trust the Process

“Trust the Process”, this tiny three worded phrase has a very important place in my life. Not many years ago, a teacher of mine constantly motivated a class of 40 students to work hard day by day. Every JEE teacher does this apparently. But his motivation used to hit differently. He never told us to look into the future, rather he encouraged us to enjoy the present day. He had a dialogue, “Enjoying the journey is more important than reaching the destination”. Well, we never understood what he meant. A few years later, I was here doing my engineering. It was that time when people were discovering their hobbies and hidden talents(because that’s what we all expected to do in the covid season). Though I had no hobby as such, I remember a slight interest in sketching from my 7 th grade. I wanted to try my hand at it. I had no motivation as such, my only reason was my mom who wanted me to have a few hours away from my laptop screen. One fine day I decided to take out a pen and a piece of paper and started sketching. It was the worst sketch I have ever made. Now I took a step down and decided to draw with a pencil instead of a pen. This sketch was a little better. In a few weeks, I started liking my sketches. But I always wanted to add colours to my work. I never did until one day when I found a set of 4 partially dried acrylic paints from an old painting set my sister owned. I started painting a gradient with 3 of those colours. Now, this became the second-worst artwork I have ever made, I didn’t even complete it. A few months later, while Instagram reels were just starting to trend, I saw a reel of a woman working with a giant graffiti work. The first 10 seconds of the reel appeared ugly, it was too clumsy, colours were all over the wall and nothing made sense or looked good. But, the voice in the background constantly said, ”Just Trust the Process”. Her 10-hour work made no sense, but the next 5 seconds, which showed the next 5 hours of her work, transformed that painting into something so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Now, those words “Trust the Process” got stuck in my mind. Then, I went back to my unfinished painting and tried completing it. It wasn’t my best, but it definitely sparked an interest in me towards painting. I never stopped painting from then. This is applicable to almost everything we try. Enjoying every bit of our journey without giving up would definitely take us to a beautiful destination, wouldn’t it? Today, the outcome of my hours spent in a painting doesn’t matter. Because I enjoy the journey of my painting. I enjoy humming to my constant Spotify playlist, I enjoy the splashes of paint on my fingers and sometimes on my t-shirts. I enjoy the peace of mind painting gives me. Even today, whenever I paint a clumsy cloud or a freaky finger, I tell myself to just “Trust the Process”, just like I did while starting this blog. Author: Rishitha Bikkumalla, Junior Undergraduate, IIT Gandhinagar