24th November 2010
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
We live in an imperfect society. In a perfect society, everything will be as they should be. People will behave as they should behave. People will follow systems and procedure. But in an imperfect society, things will not be as we want. People will not behave as they should behave. We will be disappointed at seeing a gap between what we want and what we see.
We have an option to be proactive and do what we can to remedy the situation. This will be difficult and it calls for courage and self confidence. If we do not have this, we can resort to one of the five alternatives: blaming, complaining, criticising, labelling and avoiding. This is easy and causes no tension or stress in us.
You can take any social reformers or individuals who achieved. If you read the biographies of great people, you will see a walking example for the above quotation. They performed amidst worst conditions. They were challenged by non cooperation and lack of support. Yet they made their way.
Life is not about what happens to you. It is about how you respond to what happens to you. In order to respond positively, you need two traits: passion and attitude. The type of passion a mother has with her children and the type of `never give up' attitude when her children do not behave the way they should!
N C Sridharan
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