I am sure all of us had our moments of glory and times of turbulence, this year. Each of it, would have left its mark on us. Time being an excellent teacher, would have given us apt lessons on many topics. Here are three messages for pondering over and carry forward into the New Year.
One, It’s not how much you know, it’s how you use what you know, that matters in life. In the year 1993, month of December, like this one, a woman named Joanne Rowling, in Scotland, was diagnosed with Clinical depression. She was a divorcee and also had a young child and was living on governmental benefits and fighting for survival. She contemplated suicide. She wanted to teach for a living, but unfortunately she did not even have a post-grad certificate to be eligible to teach in Scotland. What she did have was a knack for writing stories. In the year 2007, “J.K.Rowling” was declared as the 48th most powerful celebrity in the world, time magazine ranked her as the person of the year for 2007 and most leading editors in the world acknowledge her to be the “Most influential Woman in Great Britain”. She is now responsible for the $15 billon Harry potter brand. She believed in what she knew, and made use of it and was not worried about what she did not have.
Two, Treat people as if they are all VIPs. Never look down on anyone. This is a very important thing to remember in your careers. Make sure everyone feels important and is alive. There was once an old school teacher, teaching science for about 50 yrs. She retired and they gave her a royal send off for her contribution to the school and the society. The following year, there was a class which was uncontrollable by any of the teachers, so they called her back and asked her to manage that class. That year that class did wonderfully well. Naturally everyone wanted to know the secret from the old teacher. So at the end of that year, they set up a party in her honour and praised her like anything. Everyone stood to applaud her as she took the mike to thank them. She said, “Friends, on the first day I came in to the class, I looked at the student register, it read “Albert – 136, Augustine – 135 , Caroline – 134 , Cythinthia – 133….and so on. When I saw they IQ numbers I knew It was going to be easy to handle them. At that point, the headmaster stood up and said to the teacher, sorry to interrupt you madam, but those were their locker numbers not their IQ. You see, she had treated them all with respect and honour, considering them to be of a high IQ caliber and the students loved that respect and had behaved well. So always treat people like they are VIPs and you will be treated as one too. If you treat everyone like scum, imagine what your nickname would be ….. it would be “Scum” too.
Finally, live a disciplined life. Many people live lives controlled by others. That’s because they let their emotions flow freely. Many of us think of freedom is defined as “I am the lord of everything”, its certainly not defined that way. For example, if you take the train off the rails, its free, but can’t go anywhere. Similarly if the captain of the ship throws the compass away and drives in whatever direction he wants, he will be lost in the sea soon. Don’t dance to every tune. Set high goals and try to achieve them. Every New Year is a chance to live a better disciplined life, another chance at learning something new, losing a bad habit and setting a higher goal. It’s a chance not given to many, If you are getting it, it’s a gift. Use it well, make new friends, keep your family close to you, forgive and forget wrongs and reconcile with everyone. Don’t miss the chance; you might not get another one. I wish you , your families and all your friends a very wonderful and blessed new Year. God Bless you!
