Yes, We can 2
“All weakness, all bondage is imagination..
Don’t weaken stand up and be strong! That is all the religion I know. The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death. There are hundreds of microbes around us, but they cannot harm us unless we become weak until the body is ready and predisposed to receive them. There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, until the mind is weakened. This is the great fact: strength is life, weakness is death. ”
- Swami Vivekananda
This is the positive attitude towards life and its struggles. This is the spirit of life. Struggles and problems are part of life. Take the example of a butterfly. We all love butterflies. They are beautiful as well as they fly among flowers. Now try to imagine life of butterfly. It starts from a Cocoon (a tiny egg). Inside the Cocoon there is a small caterpillar. This caterpillar will struggle for many days inside the Cocoon. Some of his brothers or sisters inside the Cocoon many leave the struggle and they will die. The caterpillar that succeeds to survive against the odds and break the Cocoon will have the right to fly high and will have the right to roam among the beautiful flowers. This is the law of nature and it is also applicable to all of us. There is also a Cocoon around us. It may be of ignorance, procrastination or lack of self confidence. Let’s break all the Cocoons and let’s do what we are for and what we have dreamt of…. Yes We Can….
“For when the one great scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks- not that you won or lost-
But how you played the game.
- Grantland rice
This is the thing which we have to bear in mind while doing all our work. Many are always concerned about the results or the consequences of work. The more you focus on results, the less you can focus on work. Work is more important and how you do it is even more important. Lord Krishna gave a wonderful message in the Bhagwat Gita, “Do your duty, don’t worry about fruits.” Thus, it is a universal fact and we should follow it. We should concentrate on the improvement of our work. This can also be learnt from the lives of people working in private sectors. Success is defined for excellent people. Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting. So, start doing your work as a challenge. Sometimes, you may be bored of your work or may be dissatisfied because of low outcomes or you may feel reluctant as you get no credit for good work. My dear friends, your good work will always be counted and you will be rewarded for that. Lord Krishna highlighted this fact in the Bhagwat Gita that ‘No Karma is fruitless’. An inference may be drawn that whatever you do will have positive outcomes but you must have the patience to survive and patience to struggle.
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
- Henry ford
This is the thing in which most of us have to focus our attention - LEARNING. I refer to learning in whatever field we are. A professional should always learn to improve his skills, a businessman should always learn new things going on in his business, a teacher should always learn about new techniques and new technologies in his field. In short, everybody has to learn new things and ideas which are emerging and which are the need of time. We have to update ourselves, our thoughts and our goals timely.
“Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honour of a critic.”
- Jean Sibelius
A critic is a legless man who teaches running. This is reality. Just don’t pay attention to any critics. There are thousands of people around you who will question you, who will laugh at you, who will ignore you. This is the tendency of people. They can’t digest different thing easily. So, it is quite clear. If you want to follow your dreams, if you want to accomplish your goals and if you want to move forward……
Be deaf to the critics.
“Strong reasons make strong actions.”
- Shakespeare
You may have heard many times in India “ Time to think” or “It is a high time to think” or “Times are going to be hard for so and so graduates” or “Alarming time”…. You can interpret them as “TIME TO ACT”. At the end of the day, actions are counted. Let me give you one example. Flying in air was a passion since ages. You may have heard about many stories where a person/persons lost their life while trying to fly. One such story is about a prince who was in jail and tried to escape the prison by attaching wings. He attached the wings with his body by some kind of wax or adhesive material. He jumped and began to fly. He flew for sometime and then the wax melted and he fell off the ground and he died. What is the moral of the story? Negative people will justify that the prince was an idiot who jumped with wings attached with wax. He was useless.
Positive message from the story is that he acted. He believed in something different and tried to accomplish it. He failed in his work yet proved that wax can’t be used as a solid adhesive as it melts with high temperature. He lost his life in his belief but he became immortal in the history books because he believed that he could fly and proved that men could fly. With this inspiration Leonardo Da Vinci created a picture of the machine that could fly and with this inspiration Wright Brothers made their first plane. Dear all friends, it is the matter of belief - A strong belief in oneself and also strong belief in your work. Success will be within your reach, sooner or later.
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”
vernan law
“Experience is a jewel, and it had needed to be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.”
- William Shakespeare
I have seen many people who leave their jobs or business on the basis of one bad experience or one failure. This is not really the proper way of life. Bad experiences come with good opportunities. You should never quit. Experience itself comes from the bad experiences. You cannot estimate success by some material gains or temporary profit. It is important to take a solid stand against the failures and fight against the circumstances because quitters never win. I can give you number of examples of people who were appreciated after a very long time for their work even though they were failures in the initial stages of their life. Thus, we can believe that the present day outcomes may be reflections of the past work but they are coming with the lessons of future. Experience broadens your outlook. So, whatever you are doing, learn from your work. Always question yourself and always ask yourself what you have learnt today. One day this experience will lead you to your dreams, I’m sure about that.
“Prejudice is an opinion without judgement”
- Voltaire
Greatest weakness of mankind is his own prejudice. Prejudice is the child of ignorance. In India, we tend to see insults even in the matters of trifle importance because of our prejudice. Take the example of our office table; we keep our things properly on the table but what if a glass of water spills on the table. I have seen most of the gentleman shouting at the servants and angrily ordering him to clean. This means that the servant has to clean his master’s mistake and also bear his unnecessary harassment. He has to bear the prejudice of his master. Let us think the above case in a different manner. A glass of water is spilled on the table and the gentleman is alone in his office. What will he do then? Obviously, he will take a cloth and clean the table. Now, there is no issue of prejudice because there is nobody around him. This is the message. We there is prejudice in your mind, think that there is nobody around and do your work. How you do your work is more important than what you do.
We often talk about unemployment. Young men are not getting jobs according to their level. Who will justify their levels? I have seen many people who live their jobs because of their false prejudice. Take the example of Indians working in Dubai, Muscat and the countries of Middle East. Indians living there do various types of work there without any prejudice. They are successful because they keep their prejudice aside and start doing the work which is assigned to them. On the contrary, many young men in India leave the job when somebody scolds them or when they don’t like the nature or behaviour of their boss. I think that this prejudice must be ended.
“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.”
William Cowper
One of my friend Alkesh is very smart and a knowledgeable person. He is so smart that he can do most of the works easily. I and Alkesh needed help of a gentleman for a charity purpose. I called that gentleman and got our appointment to meet him inspite of his busy schedule. I had heard a lot about the wisdom of the gentleman but I hadn’t seen him before. We went to his office. The office was very simple and organized. There were three office chairs, two for the owners and one for the visitor. There was a bench for the visitors but it was in a far corner of the office. I sat in a chair for the visitor and my friend sat on the bench. Soon, an elderly man came in the office; he looked as if he were a peon. He told “Ramjibhai will come in half an hour, please wait for him.” My friend Alkesh stood up from the bench and sat on the owner’s chair. We started talking about our project and how we would represent before Ramjibhai. After fifteen minutes an elderly man arrived in the office and sat on the bench. He started talking with me and my plans for the project. I discussed with him my project and to my surprise that elderly man was Ramjibhai himself. The other man whom we considered as peon was the partner of Ramjibhai and his elder brother. Alkesh felt ashamed as he was sitting on Ramjibhai’s chair. Ramjibhai insisted him to sit on that chair and he continued discussing the project with me and Alkesh couldn’t even utter a word though entire explanation was to be done by him. I explained Ramjibhai the entire project and he was convinced and he granted us the favours which we wanted.
The moral is quite clear – the knowledge of Alkesh made him sit on Ramjibhai’s chair but the wisdom of Ramjibhai made him comfortable on visitor’s chair. Alkesh straightway asked for apologies and Ramjibhai just smiled and told that he didn’t even care.
Conclusion
‘Yes, we can and yes, we will’ is a way of life. We will change our lives. Problems are smaller than our determination. We will take on whatever challenges we are offered. We will survive against the odds. A positive action is far more powerful than thousands of negative thoughts. We can do what we dreamt. We can change the definitions of success. Yes we can prove ourselves right. Yes we can show new ways of doing our work. Yes we can prove that all the critics failed in assessing our qualities. Yes we can turn the situations in our favour. Yes we can dare to be different from the herd of dumb driven cattle. Yes we can……
Yes, We can
