You can be what you wish to be. There are no frontiers beyond you. Remember, you are a limitless potential. What are you going to do with your potential, use it or abuse it, is all up to you.
Every creation is born to a nature, they live within that nature, and they eventually die to that nature. Of all the creations, man alone, though born to a nature, can transcend his very nature. Man can transform himself into what he wishes to be. Man can evolve into what he chooses to be.
Like a painting is made stroke by stroke, a building is built brick by brick, the life of a man is constructed choice by choice. One choice at a time, one decision at a time, one alternative at a time, one step at a time… life is made. All that matters is to know that you are making progressive choices and not stagnant choices.
While the stagnant choices are in the know domain; the progressive choices are always in the unknown domain.
Life offers two simple possibilities. Either stagnate in the known or discover the infinite possibilities in the unknown.
Growth is your willingness to give up the (known) certainties of life and to step into the (unknown) uncertainties of limitless possibilities.
The geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. There is an order to everything in Existence. And when this orderliness expresses itself through man, he seeks certainty. He wants to be sure, confident, clear, convinced, predictable, safe, and secure. However, there is also chaotic randomness behind this order, which is why nothing repeats itself in Existence.
And when this randomness expresses itself through man, he seeks uncertainty. He seeks adventure, risk, amusement, suspense, exploration, freshness and newness. And it is only in this seeking of the unknown uncertainties that he discovers himself.
You can tie a strong horse to a pole with a very small cord and the horse cannot show his greatest speed or strength till he is free. The horse would remain transfixed to the pole. When you do not dare to give up your certainty for uncertainty it simply means you are afraid to push ahead.
You wait and wait, hoping that some mysterious power may liberate you. But remember, unknown is the parenthesis inside which infinite opportunities hide themselves. Dig them out. No new venture guarantees success and no new diversification promises profits.
But, you will never know the risk you never take. And, you never know the size of an opportunity unless you take that risk. More people in the world have failed by not taking the risk than those who risked the risk. Life itself isn’t secure. Then, where is the question of security within life?
What’s the worst that can happen? You might fail. That’s it, isn’t it! But a failure isn’t the end of life. There is no sunrise without sunset. There is no life without death. There is no success without failures. Nothing wrong turned out to be right in the long run.
The very fact that so many failures have finally turned into success implies that failures are not wrong. So, let your fear of failure not prevent you from you daring to step into the unknown future of infinite possibilities.
There is enough historical evidence that the known past and present are insignificant compared to the limitless possibilities of an unknown future.
Read this list for a reference:
Einstein’s grades in school were so poor that a teacher asked him to quit, saying, “Einstein, you will never amount to anything.” Steven Spielberg was placed in a learning disabled class, where he lasted for a month and then dropped out of school forever. Arnold Schwarzenegger was told that if he wants to succeed as an actor he better learn to speak without an accent and change his name.
Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school. Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him, “As a composer you are hopeless.” When Thomas Edison was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade.
But all of them in the above list became history makers. So, even in your case, you cannot estimate your unknown future possibilities based on the known assessment of your own past and present.
Your future is not equivalent to your past or present. What you are and what you have been are inconsequential to what you can be.
Are you too bored with your current career?
Do you feel stuck up in your family business?
Do you feel your own family or organisation has become your bottleneck?
Has it taken you so many years to realise that this is not your line of business?
Is a relationship of yours becoming a little unbearable?
In some way are you feeling chocked up in life?
Has life become a monotonous routine boring repetitive drill?
Is the current path that you have taken getting you nowhere?
Are you living the life of the living dead?
Then, throw yourself into the unknown. Do what you have never done before. Do what you never thought you could do. Make a rebellious move. Take a daring plunge. Any price, any trial, any hardship and any test of life is okay… take a transcendental leap.
All inventions and discoveries of the world have come from people who ventured bravely into the unknown. The next rung of the ladder is always an unknown factor. The next moment of life is unknown. Death can be certain but life never is.
Imran Khan, the man who captained the Pakistan cricket team to a world cup victory was once asked, “What are your future plans with cricket?” Imran replied, “While I was at college, guys and gals interested me. I was the most sought after, but that was just one phase of my life. Then it was cricket.
I led my team to the most memorable moment of our cricketing history, but that too was just another phase of my life. Then it was the cancer hospital, yet another phase of my life. Now it is politics, a new phase of my life. I do not go back to redo a phase of my life which I have already done. To know I have already done it is enough for me. I do not want to fill my entire life repeating the same stuff over and over again.”
This doesn’t mean that we have to be an aimless vagabond, but we should never cease to explore. Exploration is not about hop-step-and-jump. It is not about aimlessly escaping from one to another. It is about producing excellence in what you chose and resetting your standards. It is about having mastered the current path and venturing into a new one by choice. It is about outgrowing.
Transcendence is a childlike state. It is only for those who want to seek the unknown and make it known. Have you never danced before, then register yourself in a dance school. Go there and feel out of place. Have you never worn a modern dress before, then wear it and see the way you embarrassingly draw prominence.
Have you never told your mother-in-law that she is wrong even when she was wrong, then say it and make your voice count. However tough the consequences may be, face it. Confidence grows only when you do the things that you have never done before. The past has led you up to this point and let the future lead you from here on.
The difference between so many ordinary people remaining ordinary and those few ordinary people who turn themselves into extraordinary people is their ability to give up the know to embrace the unknown.
Henry David Thoreau aptly said, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”
Till a Roger Bannister happened, a four-minute-mile was still an unknown possibility. Till an Edmund Hillary happened, standing on the top of Mount Everest was still an unknown possibility. Till a Steve Jobs happened, from a garage to a world leader in technology was still an unknown possibility.
When I delivered my first discourse, I didn’t know that one day this world would wait to listen to me. When I wrote my first article, I didn’t know that one day this world would read my writing. When I closed my eyes for the first time in search of Him, I didn’t know He would dissolve into me.
Neither I knew that I would let go of infinithoughts one day … but all I know is that ‘Infinite possibilities exist in the unknown’. So, I am willing to break with the known and seek my breakthroughs in the unknown… Come… The unknown is inviting you and Me…
