4th January 2011
"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
Friedrich Nietzsche
We are all very intelligent. In fact more intelligent than we think we are. We do anything with a purpose. We will not be able to sustain any action if we cannot find out why we should do the same. We are all meaning seeking beings and not merely human beings.
In my time management seminars people ask me one question: what makes a person successful? I used to answer by saying that success or failure is merely a result of how sincerely the person wants the same. One has to be honestly yearning for the same. The goal or ambition should be so attractive in the mind of the person that every cell in his body and every iota of his blood is occupied by the desire to reach the same.
Victor Frankl was a Jewish Psychoanalyst who became a prisoner of war during the II World War. He did a research on the survivors of Nazi's Concentration camp. He found that those who survived the torture were not physically strong. He found that those who lived had some core meaning that made a living worthwhile. He also found that this core meaning was unique to each person who survived. They had a compelling reason to live. Because they had a compelling reason to live, they found out how to live.
In the same concentration camp was a famous writer called Eli Wiesel. He was with his aged father and he had the compelling reason to take care of his father. He and his father helped each other and lived in the concentration camp. When his father passed away, Wiesel went through worst suffering in the concentration camp.
I am fond of quoting Pantanchali's Yoga Sutra:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
We are driven by our core purpose and stronger the purpose, more will be our energy.
N C Sridharan
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