The wonder of being born again....

The first birth out of the womb of the mother is painful. The second birth out of oneself is more painful. Most of the people have only one birth and live through life as mediocre midgets. Those who want to grow and achieve, strive and gather knowledge to improve their personality and performance. Such people have a second birth, which completely transforms their life and identity. You and I are born equal but are different too. No man could be ideally successful until he has not found his place. Like a locomotive, he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else. Most of us follow the mob instead of being an engine pulling bogies and cabins forward. To become the engine, power has to be generated to move the locomotive. Standardisation, conformity, compromise etc. are the enemies of growth and development. To be different, it requires courage and taking risks. Different does not mean that we go on changing. We have to be ourselves. To be ourselves who else is better qualified than we? Herman Melville said: “Its better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation.” Average people stand at the same place and become smaller and smaller in size. Trying to be like someone else is self-defeating. The son wants to be like the father; the daughter wants to be like the mother. God has made each one different to have their own identity. If all of us are alike, there is no fun to live in this world. If there is to be sunshine all the 24 hours, the earth would be a desert. There should be day and night, darkness and light, happiness and sorrow, honesty and dishonesty, prosperity and poverty, health and sickness etc. God has given each of us an ability to do certain things well. We can’t reach our destiny or destination taking another man’s road. My science tutor once said, “If you cut your own path instead of following the tracks of others, you will make new discoveries for yourself. Do not follow the beaten track because you may get ultimately beaten; a new path will lead to marvelous discoveries and you will leave a trail!” You will find that the uncommon person alone becomes a champion. Your responsibility is not to remark yourself, but to make the absolute best of what you are made of. Samuel Johnson said: “Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities he does not possess.” An apple tree can only produce apples and not bananas but the apple could be the best and tasty! Water is a great symbol of flexible power. If it cannot follow a direct cause; if there are rocks and boulders enroute, it will always change course and find a way winding around and adopting to the terrain. Yet its power will always be to move ever forward. Ultimately, the river flows into the sea, a larger reservoir, where it can receive any volume of water. Our thoughts are like the river; fifty thousand of them every day, but very few are fit to be applied; others are either unfit or passing thoughts. These few are real assets if they can be worked for our own betterment and others too. The first thing that happens when you are on the move is that you are not going to stay where you are. It is not what you get that makes you successful; it is what you are continuing to do with what you have, that brings success. There is an anonymous poem which says: “Remember this your lifetime thoughts, tomorrow there will be more to do; failures wait for all those who stay with some success made yesterday.” For example, we hear people about their past achievements instead of saying what they wish to achieve in future. Weather-beaten bureaucrats give lectures on what they achieved many years ago and not what should be done today or tomorrow to make life a rich bounty. The beginning is the most important part of any endeavour. Worse than a quitter is anyone who is afraid to begin. Ninety percent of success is to begin and continue. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed, if you don’t try. W. Clement Stone wrote; “Many fail because they don’t get started: they don’t stir and move forward. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin. Remember that little steps add up and they become big steps. No endeavour is worse than that which is not attempted. You don’t know what you can do until you have tried. Like trees we can grow or wither!” The challenge of life is not to become stereotyped, average, mediocre and also ran. If you wish to excel, you have to shed old habits and be born again!