Did you find needle in the Haystack ?

The library at L.I.T. taught me something invaluable. While in the final year of B Tech in 1994 we were all busy with our dissertation. Each student was given a topic by his guide. The initial phase of the dissertation often involved searching abstracts related to one’s topic. This was a painful task and often involved hours / days fishing out a needle in a Haystack!

Every individual was more than busy with his own topic and rarely had time to assist others.

My friend, however showed a different approach. Whenever fellow classmates requested him for help with the abstract search he would more than willingly lend them a helping hand. He would often, spend days searching abstracts for someone else. As the Final dates for dissertation drew closer, I could not resist myself from urging him to stop this social service and concentrate on his dissertation topic.

He did not comment on my unsolicited advice then. The results spoke for themselves. His dissertation was among the best. When I thought over it, this is what I realized. While helping others, my friend searched various topics unrelated to his thesis field. He had a 360 ° approach and often stumbled upon abstracts relevant to his topic, which otherwise he would not have accessed, had he followed a unidirectional approach in searching abstracts.

Few very popular phrases sum it up “GIVERS GAIN” ® or   “WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND”® both of which are registered by BNI®