What It Takes For The Ordinary To Become The “Extra”Ordinary

In everyone’s life, there are some moments, when he or she is made to choose between difficult alternatives. Many times, one alternative will be a path of truthfulness, courage, honesty and all good virtues that we read about in our moral science class and the other would be that of all opposite to the first one. The first path, as we all know, is very difficult to follow and there are very few people on this earth who possess the inner strength to do so. Those who choose to follow the right path are remembered throughout the history as role models and inspire the future generations because against all odds they decided to follow the right path. This chance of being great is given to all in their life, the amount of greatness may vary but I believe that the chance is given to all. I want to draw your attention to one beautiful aspect of choosing this right path. Almost in all cases when someone decides to choose it, he or she generally does it for others and not for himself or herself. If he or she does it for themselves than it would become largely an act of selfishness and it won’t be remembered for long and that act will die with the person’s demise. I think this is what defines the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary. Its that little extra for which we all must strive for when the life throws up the challenge upon us.

I know its not easy to do so in many circumstances and very few are capable of making the right choice in their life. If all would have been capable of doing it than earth would have become heaven. Its been a long time since I have written something meaningful. As good writing or performing any other art form is just like worshipping your God, which you have to do in proper frame of mind. A lot of important developments happened last year, which were of earth shaking magnitude , such as economic collapse of reckless western capitalist economies and big companies as Lehman Brothers, election of Obama as US president, even after no performance and so many bomb blasts reelection of Congress government at center and in Maharashtra, left’s weaning influence in West Bengal , quick rise of China as world’s new superpower, death of Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka and destruction of Pakistan by hands of its own Bhasmasurs (I predicted this long ago in my previous blogs). Some other important developments on domestic front are; abusive winner competition between Thackreys, divorce of Amar and Mulayam , arrest of ULFA’s tope leadership (except Paresh Barua), astonishing growth in Bihar’s GDP and RSS’s open attack on Shiv Sena’s and MNS’s anti India ideology and the ghastly terror attacks of naxals on security forces. All these developments will go long way in shaping the world’s and India’s destiny.

I kept my tabs on all these issues and wanted to write on all of them at that time, but there was a lot going on in personal life to concentrate on all these things. Well than in that case I have not been able to make the right choice I believe. Anyways a lesson is learnt and its learned well. Last few months I spent lots of time in learning about myself and who I really am. I haven’t been able to figure that out but its always good to give some quiet moments to reflect back on what you have done and what you should have done to make your present more like what you want to see in future. The problem with most of us is we just crib about our present and think that future is going to be good. What we don’t realize most of the times is that its our present deeds, which decides what our future is going to be. The decision that we are going to take in our present moment is going to be basis of our future. This thought reinforces my belief in theory of Karma where its often said that as you sow so shall you reap.

I believe most of us might have heard about Mr Steven Covey. He is a great writer and his book “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” has a cult following. I haven’t read that book but recently I came across one of his principles. Its known as 90-10 principle. This principle states that of all things happening with you its approximately 10 % on which you have no control but remaining 90% in your life is decided by your reaction to that 10 %. He gives a wonderful example. It goes like suppose you are getting ready for office in morning and your mother is preparing breakfast for you. Your sister also has to go to school but she is helping the mother too. Mother tells her to give you the tea that she prepared for you, since your sister is also in hurry, she accidently spills the tea on your office cloths. Your instant reaction in most of the cases would be that you will shout at her and this will upset your sister and your mother. After this shouting in morning your day at office will also be worse and so is your sister’s day at school. Now suppose if your reaction to this would have been much calmer and mature than your and all your loved ones day would have been better. The tea got spilled and we know that we don’t have any control over that but our reaction to that incident would have made a difference.

So its always these extra small things, which if kept in mind can lead to doing extraordinary things in life. I know we all cant be like sun, which can dispel the ignorance of darkness in one go, but we all can be like small lamps, which if put together gives the best chance of outshining the sun.