XAT-ed part-I

By the third or fourth week of the term, business school had succeeded in afflicting me with a variation of the Stockholm syndrome, named after the incident in which a hostage in a Stockholm bank robbery fell in love with one of her captors. It brought out the materialistic part of me and how! It made me do things I had sworn not to do,ever. It turned me into the most selfish,self-centered and self-obsessed person I've ever known. I learned to ignore others asking for my help,I learned to pretend that I was yet to start working on my assignment when I,in fact,had them finished long ago. I learned to cheat on my friends,go to a movie with them,promising that all I'd do after getting home back would be 'lusting over George Clooney' when,in reality,the first thing I did after getting home was opening the books and working on the H.R project on 'Nicotine free cigarettes'.And,to my horror,I started enjoying it.I started coming up with excuses for justifying my action.'I bet they're no better than me' ,'If I waste time being a good friend in these two years,everyone would remember me as a good(unemployed) friend','I didn't come here to make friends or form bonds'...I reminded myself again and again that life in a business school was cruel.After becoming an MBA,you'd actually be paid for being selfish and mean.So,why not start practicing from now only? Besides,this neck-to-neck competition in a business school actually prepares you for all the hardships ahead.So,in a way,I was doing a favor to my friends.Preparing them for the hard reality instead of keeping them in an illusion,isn't that what friends do?But still,I couldn't really convince myself that it was 'fair' or 'equal' competition.My friends might have been equally dishonest for all I knew but my parents never taught me to live my life by the rule 'a tooth for a tooth.'Once upon a time,I had actually dreamed of being a much bigger person-someone who didn't think twice before comforting her friend when they went through a bad break up even if she had an exam the day after,someone who won't mind her friend copying her resume with just the name changed,someone who risked being disqualified in a practicals exam to help her friend.Turns out one can't be 'a good friend' and 'a good manager' at the same time.The weaker dream has to be given up.It's always 'survival of the fittest',even if it's the 'fittest dream'.