G. Balasubramanian | Chairperson, Board of Advisors, ICSL | Editor-in-Chief, The Progressive School
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
- R.W. Emerson
It is very important that we should have a beautiful mind. But do we carry that beautiful mind always with us? Why should we carry always a beautiful mind? How do we get a beautiful mind? It is often seen that people with a right attitude have a beautiful mind. Depending on our attitude the mind articulates what we want and designs the caricature of our desires. No wonder, it is said that a man is a product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes. I recall a story which I had read sometime back:
A villager who is unhappy with the state of affairs in his village decides to migrate to the nearby village. He had to pass through a forest. On his way he finds a saint sitting under a tree and meditating. He salutes the saint and asks him, “Rev Sir, I am going to the nearby village for settlement. How are the people over there?” The saint smiles and asks him “How were the people in the village you are coming from?” The villager replied: Oh, they were a set of scoundrels and rouges. There was none who had an amiable character.” The saint says: Is it so? I am sorry; you will find similar people only in the next village too.
A few days later another villager passing by asks the same question to the saint. The saint asks him the same question. The villager replies: Oh, they are a set of lovable people. They are very good and it really pains me to leave a village of this kind.” The saint now tells him “Well, you will find a similar set of lovable people in that village too.
The message of the story is very clear.
A leader always finds the right circumstances for doing things rather than blaming the environment for his non-performance. The inability of a leader to find the right ambiance for doing a thing would easily be understood by his fellow-men. He can’t continuously blame the circumstances for not doing things. The success of a leader lies in developing right circumstances for performance and there lies the quality of his leadership.
George Bernard Shaw says:
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they cannot find them, make them.
Can we take some efforts every morning to make the circumstances we need for that day?