Each of us can achieve eminence in life and career. Agreed that it isn’t easy — but, what helps one to attain distinction is focused thought and a constant desire to be what one wants to be. You can’t, of course, achieve just by thinking alone until you internalise your thoughts from deep within — because, mere outwardly thinking cannot help us to reach our goals.
This has nothing to do with education, or genetics — what makes one ‘tick’ is constancy of purpose and action. There is yet another aside, though. Have you not seen innumerable people trying to make it big by reading self-help books and applying the modules from them — without thinking what is it that they ‘need’ to succeed. The result is often failure. Books alone don’t provide the ammunition for one to develop. What drives us to our objective is what we ‘think’ about what we read. The point also is thinking is not as straightforward as it appears to be. It is, perhaps, the hardest thing and the most gruelling of all effort. This is one reason why most of us give up before we explore our ‘exacting’ thought.
One must always remember that thoughts to make it big are like trees of slow growth, with strong roots. Yet, it is a fact that not many of us think this way, or in such a mode, because we are creatures with habitual impatience. The more we believe that we are formed by nature to incessantly think, explore and accomplish, the better it is for us. This will facilitate us to remain focused till we achieve our objective. Winners are endowed with such a leap of faith, not just outlook. This is what that separates them from folks who fleetingly engage in a ‘great’ idea, or thought, without clinging to it.
This is not all. Winners engage in continuous activity. They also spend most of their leisure time focusing on the thought they have in mind — sometimes with a sense of ‘detached’ attachment. This is supposedly the best part — as they return to their thought process, with fresh intensity, they tend to get a better grip of things without ever letting go of their ‘connect’ with the ‘original’ thought. You guessed it right — people who spend the greater part of their leisure time away from a central thought often remain where they are. All they do is complain, fret and frown — that notwithstanding paramount effort, ‘things just don’t seem to work’ for them.
The best way one can move forward is by thinking, juxtaposed by action. This calls for emulating some of the greatest men and women that ever lived — thinkers, philosophers, scientists and statesmen, among others. Not folks who represent baser elements, including squalid and irrelevant issues — of scandals, scams, expediency and material prosperity, with no regard for ethics, or moral values. Picture this — Benjamin Franklin and Mahatma Gandhi dealt with questions of eternal truth, freedom and candour. They lived with great ideas; they lived each moment with great thoughts. This was precisely the raison d’être for their monumental greatness — never before, or after, incarnate.
What does this signify? That focused thinking is what that propels our personality and also growth. In so doing, it activates new brain cells and new faculties. When such thinking is also supplanted by focused action, it leads to culmination — of success and fulfilment. As essayist-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, when a thought is arranged and classified, it can change, nay transform, our circumstance and life.
Happy New Year!
