Light Your Own L A M P
Over one thousand people had converged at the auditorium. It was time to begin. All the preparation culminated on the day to highlight the inaugural function. Everything, everyone, and every aspect had been looked into. After the invocation, the chief guest was asked to light the lamp.
It is often customary to light a lamp whenever we set out to start something important or auspicious. Why do we do so?
The obvious answer is that it is a symbolic manifestation of moving away from darkness to light.
True but are we in the dark?
We find that the venue is lit more than usual during any function. Where is the darkness?
The darkness is within us!
Let us consider the following instances:
· A girl thinks that she has no friends in school.
· A boy has failed in the pre-university exams and finds no one takes him seriously.
· The homemaker is depressed because no one in the family wants her.
· An executive feels that everyone in the office is plotting against him.
· A businessman discovers that all her/his honest efforts are leading to failure.
Such instances galore in everyday life but we rarely try to go to the root of the problem. These people in distress are told by everyone that it is their mistake. Unfortunately, whatever changes these people try to make, end up in further disappointment.
Who put the darkness in the lives of these people?
Whatever we hide remains in darkness. It could be our money, our wealth, our
intelligence, our abilities, our personality, our attitudes, or our motives. It could be our talents, too.
We need a light to bring these out of the darkness.
All of us are born with abundant energy that we need to charge. This energy is an unlit lamp.
The only solution is to light our lamp rather than wait for someone to light it.
When we wait, we keep waiting. Irrespective of how much the other significant members of our lives love us, they cannot give their hundred percent to us. When they look at our problems, they try to squeeze this into their own set of problems. Rarely does this take precedence over other problems as they have their priorities set to deal with other problems.
To charge our batteries and put in our hundred percent we must light our lamps.
The word L A M P stands for four major aspects of our life: Leadership, Attitude, and Motivation leading to Performance.
A traditional lamp can give light because of its wick, oil, and fire.
Leadership
The wick stands for Leadership. A leader can give out something of her/himself to serve others. Just like a wick burns to provide light, a leader has to keep giving to help others.
The more we give, the stronger we become. The more we receive, the weaker we become.
Attitude
The oil signifies Attitude. The oil has to be pure. Similarly, our attitude has to be positive. We need to keep adding oil as it gets exhausted. Similarly, we have to keep on adding positive thoughts toward our desired goals, irrespective of the opposition, negation, and neglect of our achievement.
Motivation
The fire is represented by our motivation. Irrespective of the wind or other disturbances the fire keeps burning. We need to be inspired in whatever we do and keep our motivational levels high. Others may try to diffuse our fire. Rather than blaming others, we need to strengthen our fire by keeping ourselves educated, willing, and contributing.
Performance
With the three – the wick, the oil, and the fire – the lamp can give light. We need to keep our leadership, attitude, and motivation to keep performing. It is not necessary to wait for someone else to appoint us as a leader, change our attitudes from negative or neutral to positive, and keep motivating us. We can continue to do it through our effort and will.
Our research on these dimensions of life has led to an understanding that we do not aspire to reach our fullest potential. The following table illustrates the percent of efficiency we have measured in each aspect. The result is an average score for 400 people and is indicated in percentages.
|
Leadership |
Attitude |
Motivation |
Performance |
||||||
|
Qualities |
Styles |
Overall |
Self |
Life |
Overall |
Achievement |
Overall |
73 |
|
|
63 |
70 |
66 |
82 |
70 |
76 |
78 |
77 |
77.5 |
|
An interesting revelation of our study was that students scored better than adults. This indicates that we lose out on our energy as we grow older. We start expecting that someone else is going to light our lamp. The more we hope for others to help us, the greater we lose trust in ourselves. Others have little time, energy, inclination, and willingness to light our lamp.
Consider an Olympic medalist, a mountain climber, or an achiever. All these people have been successful because they did light their lamps. They were able to leave us a legacy so that we can light our lamp from theirs. Is this not what we are supposed to do, too?
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