Motivational Ideas (Part 5)

1. Each one of us has certain strengths and weaknesses. We acquire them genetically and our environment also shapes each one of us. Thus, it is according to each person’s strength that a role is determined for him in society.

Not everyone does the same type of work, nor can everyone. Each one of us inclines towards what we can do best. And at the same time, each one of us have weaknesses. Does this mean that each one of us quits everything and sits down while saying that I have certain weaknesses and thus I am useless? Does he ignore his strengths as well? Absolutely not. None of us should let our weaknesses stop us from doing whatever is in our capability. This is how a society can function at its best. Everyone shines at whatever he is good at and leaves the other tasks to experts in other fields.

For example, some people are strong at memorizing, some people are strong at athleticism, some people are strong at speaking, some people are strong at reading, some people are strong at multi-tasking etc.

However, we should try to improve ourselves in things we feel that we need in our life but we are weak in them. However, in order to find our strengths, its important that we don’t remain seated. Rather we should give up our laziness and try to take part in various tasks as well as try to increase our knowledge. This is how we will learn our strengths and weakness and eventually improve both our strengths and our weaknesses.

2. Let us look at how provision affects all 3 sectors of the society:

The poor have two options. The first is to cry about what they don’t have and continue in their ‘excess’ greed to desire more than is required. The second is to make use of this limited opportunity to grow further. Poor people have limited opportunities and it is the lack of opportunities that lets one grow. They can use their free time to contemplate and make some productive use of this time.

The mediocre also have two options. They can continue to desire more wealth and waste the limited resources that they have by procrastination. Or, they can use the available resources that they have to grow and become productive. They have more resources than the poor and so they have to be wise on how to use them.

The rich also have two options but their test is quite tough. Although, they too can create a lot of good in society with their plethora of resources, they can easily be blinded by the excess comfort of life. They have so many options and reclining on the couch is the easiest and the most accessible. They really need to fight their insides to grow. Life doesn’t force them to do any such thing. Thus, they are not forced to push and this may result in them not improving themselves in their skills and knowledge. Plus, they can easily spend all their time buying and maintaining their luxuries.

3. Utilizing Resources: Every one has several resources around them. Some have more, some have less. But I believe that having resources is not the real advantage someone has over another. The real advantage some people have over others is how well they utilize their available resources. This can easily be understood by imagining two people. One has one book to read, the second one has a hundred books to read. The second one successfully reads his one book, yet the first one doesn’t even touch a single book. Clearly the first one was better equipped and more resourceful yet the second one actually took advantage of his meager, yet available resource.

Our desires play a big part in our recognition of our resources. We can easily neglect things around us that we don’t feel like using. Even our health is our resource. We can easily neglect it in many ways. We may have healthy food but we may opt for less healthy foods. Our body may be working fine but we may choose not to exercise out of laziness.

Its easy to take our resources for granted. We usually believe that our resources will last forever and that we have unlimited time and that we can utilize them whenever we wish. And perhaps the biggest resource that we can take for granted is our time. And there is no doubt that it leaves us just as the water leaves an open faucet. We should utilize our time positively by gaining knowledge, exercising, helping around the house, making money, socializing and learning our religion.

Sometimes we have resources but we feel like we will waste them by using them. This attitude makes us store things for ages without using them and without letting others use them as well. We may keep some clothes, cutlery etc. like this for years and make no use of them. Rather, its important we realize that what comes to us is a blessing and using it for our better and that of others can help the society prosper. We should save them only when there is a wise reason to do so.

Lastly, I would really like to mention something important. I believe that currently a lot of the world, is wasting its time on social media and on sites like YouTube. I believe they should stop throwing time away. The internet is filled with useful stuff. I believe that the world should start educating themselves using such resources and not let them be there for no one to utilize. Likewise, we also have a lot of resources off the internet, such as books and magazines etc.

Life is too short to throw your time away and keep resources unused. Either use them or else you may never get the time to. Sometimes we realize that we could have had better days had we been a bit more in the game!