Saturday, August 21, 2010
What makes great men great...
Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As a kid I used to read this just for the sake of reading it and not really understanding the truly profound truth behind those words. Now when Iam standing at the threshold of my adult life I am able to get a small idea of why this statement is so important for all of us. The perspiration that Edison was referring to need not be the actual physical labor but also the mental grit that it takes to achieve something.As I see it there are 2 types of people in life, those who know what is right and those who "PRACTICE " what they believe to be right. Almost 99 percent of the people in this planet will come under the first category. They are the lot who know that they should not be watching the movie before an exam and still watch it, they are the ones who know they should not be distracted but still get distracted , they are the ones who know they should not be eating those extra calories but still eat it . In short these are the people who have the "inspiration" but are not willing to do the perspiration. The inspiration I am talking about is knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and the perspiration is the mental determination to set yourself in the path of your dreams. All men (at least most) dream of making it big. They want to leave their imprints in the world but how many actually manage to achieve that ?? Does it mean that those who did not achieve are not skillful enough to do it? I definitely dont think so. I think they dont achieve because they lack the will to do what is necessary to achieve. They are not prepared to leave their leave their little titillation in order to achieve what they believe in. While on the other hand the ones who actually achieve it are the ones who do what needs to be done to achieve it. They are the guys who evaluate their exact position and do what is necessary to set themselves in the right track. Easy as it might sound its one of the toughest mental challenges faced by humans. If it had been easy then we would have had more remarkable men in this world. In order to explain my point I wont talk about the clichéd examples of Edison, Gandhi or Gates. I would rather talk about someone whom i know quite well, some one who falls in to the 99 percent category ie. ME (Arun Venugopal ) . I am a prototype of the 99% lot. I live with a lot of ambitions and ideas (ie. the inspirations) but I am totally lacking in the perspiration part. I come to the conclusions after retrospecting on all those great things in life i could have done. I knew that I need to work hard on physics and chemistry to crack JEE but still did not work on those. All those competitions and projects which I knew I should put more effort for but did not bother to (putting all the blame on my team and guide). Finally I knew that the only thing I need to watch out for cracking CAT would be my calculation mistakes and once again i never took an effort to correct them. Finally this paragraph is the epitome of my lack of perspiration, I know that the last few sentences are a quagmire of tenses which I am supposed to be mastering but I am not. You might wonder why I am holding this session of self slandering. The reason I write this is to give myself a kick ass effect so that every time I read this Ill know why I am what I am and not what I wanted to be. The final conclusion that I wish to draw is that we dont get anything by understanding what is right (or what has to be done) for by realizing that we have merely traveled 1% of the distance that we need to travel. To travel the 99% we need to actually take control of ourselves and break the inertia. For the easiest path that shows up before us is not always the best path. For we are not electrons or fluids to choose the path of least resistance. Its the rejection of this easiest path that makes great men great.
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A small tip before I start reading this: break your content down into paragraphs, makes for an easier read.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've finished reading it,
1. "Does it mean that those who did not achieve are not skillful enough to do it? I definitely dont think so." - I want to ask you a simple question pertaining to these two sentences only. Which one do you think is the greater? Thinking good or doing good? If thinking good is what you deem the better, then those who did not achieve their best are without condemnation because they took the initiative to divert their resources to think about it, instead of other idle thought. If doing good is what you deem the better, then those who did not achieve what they set out to achieve are the same as those who did not set out at all. Which one is it?
2. As for the rest of the post, what you spoken about is an inescapable fact of life that many, regrettably, overlook. Such small things making a big difference is a truth that many realize much later, when the realization itself may not have any bearing at all. But I have just one doubt in this arena: does this mean that great men never enjoyed being whimsical in their younger days? Did they sacrifice everything?
When a young man sets out about his work, he does it in a manner that he deems fit. Let's say he did watch that movie before that exam and that he did miss out on a particular question he could have studied for in that time. Does that mean that skipping the movie would have never given rise to the situation at all? Who is to say that the movie alone is to blame? But yes, you are again right there: if you want something done, eliminate as many unnecessary activities as possible. Poka Yoke!
Again, great post :D Looking forward for more.
Its the combination of getting the right ideas and making those ideas work that is important. The idea is like the direction component of a vector. without the idea we dont have a proper direction your magnitude is of no use. Its the combination of the idea and hard work that will define the vector of our goals. But with just the direction you will always be the unit vector which will depend on someone for a magnitude. We can definitely feel happy that we are not a null vector which does not point to any direction in particular.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be a few exceptional people who manage to do things in spite of distractions. Not everyone has the sort of focus that they have. Iam not saying that we should never enjoy these little things ever again but when there is some work at hand we will be better off without these distractions.
Ill break down the post into proper passages next time . Thanks for the encouragement dude
@ BQC - In many ways, what you have felt is a hard reality. Though we all have realised that ounce of work is better than a ton of talking, still we can't avoid killing our 'precious' time in the networking sites and the like.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation of perspiration using a vector was nothing less than perfect ! Nike's slogan strikes my mind often which says 'just do it'. So the point is to always strive hard to increase our 'magnitude' in the direction at that moment for the direction of our life's vector is more often than not remains undecided. Life has it's unique way of connecting the dots. The point is to do justice to whatever role currently taken-up. The result will take it's time and in the end one would not end up as a zero-vector but be a lynchpin capable of pointing in many particular directions.
@ Mukundh : I guess you mean to say there s hardly any difference between the guy who has tried and lost eventually and the one who hasn't played the game at all. Thats not true !
ReplyDeleteWell, there's a marked difference between them because in real life, the game doesn't end there. Life throws up not one but many opportunities. So even if we lose in one( and not miss one! ), we would find it easier to latch on to another by the past experience gained in similar situtations. No better teacher in this world than one's own experience. So next time one plays a game the lessons learnt would surely come in handy !
Nice post Arun. Please do break such essays into paragraphs for better clarity. Now that you have kicked yourself in the rear, how about getting back to doing some useful work? ;) just kidding!
ReplyDelete