Money Lessons: 3 Idiots

“Aal izz well!” All will be well (on a financial front) once you start doing the right things with your money. Here’s how:

Did you watch 3 Idiots just for the sake of some fantabulous acting performances and great music? Oh boy! You missed out on some of the finest financial lessons. That’s right! We don’t like making jokes about money (or anything related to it). Even if you missed it, don’t worry! Like always, we’ve got your back.

Additional Reading: 6 Lazy Habits To Build Your Savings

Is Aal well with your finances? If it isn’t, it will be (after you finish reading this article). Here are some of the crucial money lessons you missed while watching 3 Idiots:

• Life is a race

No matter how much you loved Aamir’s role (Rancho/Phunsuk) in the movie, you can’t deny that one of the favourite characters was Virus (Boman Irani), right? Although he played a negative role through most of the movie, he had an important financial lesson to teach. What was it? He kept repeating these words ‘life is a race’. Well, if you look at it, life is a race! When we’re in school, we keep running after good grades. College life teaches us many key lessons like running away from classes, running after that crush etc. By the time we start earning, we learn to run after one thing—money! We switch jobs looking for a better job (one that pays more). And then, there’s no looking back. More starts seeming less as more years keep getting added in your work experience in that CV. The key lesson here is that to become more successful and financially sound, you must keep challenging yourself. There are high chances that you might find a sweet spot in your professional life. The day you stop learning more and start getting stuck in a boring work routine is when you stop growing! Professionally, personally and financially! Not something you wish to do, right? That’s why they say change is good. Don’t get us wrong. We don’t mean that you need to be a chronic job-hopper. Even if you stay in the same company, try stepping out of your comfort zone and learn more. Do something that challenges your existing skillset and before you know it, you might get that promotion you’ve been aiming for all this while. We all love raises and promotions, don’t we? Who doesn’t love some extra cash!

• Erase words like ‘if’, ‘scary’, ‘failure’ from your dictionary

Someone has said ‘Whatever you want is on the other side of fear’; and that’s true. Remember that sequence where everyone is busy preparing for exams and blackmailing their favourite Gods? For good grades of course. Rancho keeps telling his friends that instead of getting scared, they must focus on learning. We are humans after all and are bound to get scared. The trick lies in keeping it all under control. When it comes to your finances, don’t get scared about investing in the stock market or other financial instruments. It all might sound a bit risky, but unless you’re willing to take some well-calculated risks, you can’t progress. Can you? Stop getting scared. Tell yourself ‘Aal izz well’ and take that leap of faith. Yes, we mean the financial leap of faith. Study the market trends and invest accordingly. Once you know what you’re doing, nothing can go wrong!

• Always back your friends up!

Be it a financial crisis or any other bad situation your friend is in, never turn your back on them. That’s an unsaid rule of friendship. You always have to be there for each other. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you need to keep lending money without keeping an account. There are people who will take advantage of that. While we don’t want that to happen to you, we also want you to be a friend they’re proud of having around! Rancho and Farhan leave everything behind (even their final exams) just to be with Raju when his dad is admitted in the hospital. It was quite risky, but friends come first, don’t they? Some transactions are not done in currency notes. Remember how Raju kind of paid Rancho back by bringing Piya (Kareena) to him? Quite a happy ending it was! Moral of the story, always be there for your friends. Not for everyone, but those few who’ve never said no to anything you’ve asked for. Those are the precious ones you need to hold on to.

• Practical knowledge triumphs over bookish words

No matter how qualified you are, practical knowledge and things you learn out of your personal experiences teach you a lot more than those thick books. At some point in life, we’ve all been stuck somewhere in those fat textbooks, trying to mug things up. Be honest with yourself, have you ever used those in your real life? No, right? All those complicated formulae, those mind-bending Physics concepts, those author names; everything! We don’t use them now. Stop following bookish knowledge blindly. Instead, try and learn new things by experiencing them. That doesn’t mean that you need to stop reading or consulting learned people. It just means that to gain actual knowledge, you must explore things on your own. Just because your friend or some website told you that you’re making a financial mistake doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Check for the credibility of that information. Remember Chatur’s famous speech? The one where Rancho changes the words? Chatur is so driven to impress people that he doesn’t bother finding out the real meaning of those words before mugging them up. And well, that doesn’t exactly work in his favour. Before blindly following what books/people or websites say, you must find out what those words actually mean. Blindfolding yourself and ignoring the possibility of that book being wrong will never work in your favour. You might end up like Chatur after delivering that speech (he gets kicked by the dean, in case you’ve forgotten)!

Did you ever think that apart from some great acting performances, this movie also had so many important financial lessons to teach? Well, that’s why you have us. Implement these in your life and we’ll be back soon with another blockbuster movie and some more interesting money lessons.

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