Many people die
as copies. To die a copy is to die a slave. Masters are original. Personal
mastery is stamping your originality on earth. The copy adapts himself to the
world. The original adopts the world to himself.
Imitation is
limitation.
Julius Charles
Hare once said, ‘ Be what you are. This the first step towards becoming better
than you are’. Look at how Samuel Johnson puts it. He says, ‘There lurks ,
perhaps in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man
first to hope and then to believe , that Nature has given him something
peculiar to himself’. How so true.
Personal mastery
is being a first rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of
somebody else. Listen to legendary playwright, William Shakespeare, speak, ‘God
has given you one face, and you make yourself another’. That quote reminds me
of this story. A certain woman was told she would die from cancer before she
would be 40, and she was few months away. She prayed to God on her sick bed and
God told her, ‘I will add 32 more years to your life’. His voice was so clear
and distinct to her. She got better and healed from the cancer to the amazement
of the doctors. A few months later, she was back to the hospital. This time to
do a facial plastic surgery. She was now on a beauty therapy. The day she was
released from the surgery to go home with a new face, she crossed the road and
was hit by an ambulance. She died. When she got up to meet God, the story says,
she asked God, ‘But I thought you said you will add 32 more years to my life’.
God replied, ‘I am sorry dear. I didn’t recognize you.’
Personal mastery
is being you, and having no apologies for being that. Andre Gide once said, ‘It
is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are
not’
Dare to be
different. Dare to be ‘you’. The reward for conformity is that everyone likes
you except yourself. There is just one life for each of us, our own. Live it.
It takes a lot of courage to grow up and become who you really are.
Remember this:
Not all those who wander are lost. One who walks in another man’s track leaves
no footprint. Here is how R.W. Emerson, who was said to be the wisest man in
America in his time, puts it. He says, ‘Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go, instead, where there is no path and leave behind a trail.
You are a master
when you have your own opinion. You are a master when you make your choices and
accept the consequences. You are a master when you stand out from the crowd
rather than blend in. Anatole France once said, ‘If 50 million people say a
foolish thing. It is still foolish thing’. George Patton said, ‘If everyone is
thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.’ I love how Mark Twain ,
essayist, critic and philosopher, put it. He said, ‘Whenever you find yourself
on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect’
The opposite of
courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Fashion is what you adopt when you
don’t know who you are. Most people prefer belief to the exercise of judgment.
‘When a true
genius appears’, said Jonathan Swift, ‘you may know him by this sign, that the
dunces are all the confederacy’. True. Very true. To be a genuine original
requires a great deal of courage strength and belief in oneself. It is not easy
to chart new territory, to cross new frontiers or to introduce subtle shadings
to an established colour.
Let me close
this chapter with words of R. W. Emerson. He says, ‘ Whatever you do, you need
courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you
are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe
that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and to follow it to
the end, require some courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories ,
but it takes brave men to win them.
