Want to be happy in life, just ROL-BOL

By Darshan Sankhala

Almost everybody is running behind their idea of success, and we often hear that if they had some spare time, they would pursue an initiative or a hobby to be happy. I heard people from all walks of life say this, and I thought that most people are, in fact, wanting a reason to be happy.

This is why we started our community to make ‘Rest Of Life’ the ‘Best Of Life’ on 12th January 2020 at Raipur, Chhattisgarh, on the auspicious occasion of the national youth day. Our members took the oath in the presence of our honourable governor Sushri Anusuiya Uikey, TMKOC fame Shailesh Lodha, UPSC topper Ira Singhal, Forbes listed photographer Vicky Roy, and Devendra Gupta from Ladli Foundation. Dignitaries from various backgrounds blessed our community, and 30 celebrities endorse it without charging a single rupee as a token of goodwill. It has been two years ever since we conceived this community, and it has now spread across five cities.

We focus on undertaking initiatives that we can easily include along our daily activities to make the remainder of our lives fruitful. So the first activity we introduced to ROL-BOL was socializing without any personal interests. Often when we meet people, we try to weigh them by their social stature and our mutual interests without genuinely thinking about what they have to say or offer. This leads to a lack of true socializing, and thus, we encourage our members to connect with each other with the sole aim of listening to each other. This helps keep depression and other mental issues at bay since it gives our members a chance to pour their hearts out.

The second most important activity at ROL-BOL is self upgradation since each of us needs to improve consistently for becoming and staying successful. Our community members take the initiative of teaching their skills to each other as a part of this initiative.

Thirdly, ROL-BOL community members focus on nation-building through their self-building. We often find people saying that it’s the government’s responsibility to keep India clean or to curb the menace of corruption. But, many of us don’t want to uproot corruption or even throw a wrapper in the dustbin if we are in a public place. ROL-BOL members take up their individual responsibilities as citizens since each of us represents 1/125 crore part of India. If each of us assumes our duties and tries to bring the best in ourselves, 1/125 crore part of India will automatically become the India of our dreams.

We focus on disciplining ourselves through small yet substantial acts like wearing a seatbelt when driving a car, wearing helmets, not giving bribes for any reason whatsoever, maintaining cleanliness because corruption, in any form and at any scale, remains a vice. By strengthening our individual characters, we will be able to strengthen our country as a whole.

At ROL-BOL, our community members also run hobby groups to keep our initiatives interesting and relevant to each of them. For instance, if a group of members are interested in a particular subject, we would curate a reading group where each of them would review a book on the topic. This helps all community members learn about the topic and helps keep us relevant to our members.

Networking is fostered as a part of our community as it is one of the ways our members can keep in touch with each other beyond the community get together timings. It also strengthens their relationships, and I find that networking has become an important aspect of boosting economic cooperation with like minded individuals.

Thus, we can say that ROL-BOL tries to touch lives socially, financially, spiritually, and overall well being. I have felt that ROL-BOL’s success is driven by the fact that it is a collective effort by individuals who are committed to themselves and the betterment of our society. We intend to take this initiative to a lot more cities in the near future and to be active stakeholders in nation-building through self-building.

(The author is Founder at ROL-BOL. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Financial Express Online.)