An Eternal Optimist

After completing reading a voluminous book "A Long walk to freedom:An autobiography by Nelson
Mandela" i could not resist myself but to write this post.

Who is an optimist? An optimist is the one who keeps one's head pointed towards the sun,one's feet moving forward.There would me many dark moments when his faith would sorely be tested, but he would not give himself up to despair because that way lay defeat and death.

I have found one such eternal optimist in Nelson Mandela. This no-normal human being held his hopes alive for around 27 years when he was fettered in an isolated island . He never accepted the things as they  were especially when he found them to be unjust.He was a fighter of a life time .He fought a indefatigable battle against the apartheid ,against the jail authorities for inhumane conditions of the Robben Island which was his home for around 20 years .

Even though Nelson drew his inspiration from Gandhian movements in India there are some striking differences between their approaches as a whole. For Eg: Nelson Mandela saw Non-Violence on the Gandhian model not as an inviolable principle but as a tactic to be used as the situation demanded.So Gandhi was a man of principle but Mandela was a more pragmatic leader.


Friends here is a story of an eagle :
EAGLE can live up to 70 years, but to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision in its' 40's
Its' long & flexible talons can no longer grab prey which serves as food, Its' long & sharp beak becomes bent
Its' old-aged & heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, become stuck to its' chest & make it difficult to fly
Then eagle is left with only 2 options: die or go through a painful process of change which lasts 150 days.
The process requires that eagle fly to a mountain & the eagle knocks its' beak against a rock until it plucks it out
After this, eagle will wait for a new beak to grow back. When its' new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking its' old-aged feathers & after 5 months, eagle can take its' flight of rebirth & lives for 30 more years

I am sure that people have heard this story for more than once in their life time but i found this story to have some analogy to the life of Mandela and for that matter all the greats who have lived on the earth, for all of them had 2 phases in their life .The first half that is pretty ordinary that most of all live and the second half which is an extraordinary ones.The interval between 2 stories is the struggle , similar to that of an eagle, these people go through and endure without complaining .

So the question is why most people's life turn out to be so ordinary and lackluster ?
Is it something that is pre-etched in person's genes that decides whether he becomes a great personality or a mediocre ?
Answer to this is a plain NO.
Then what is it that matters? It is ,how big one's dreams are, how much one can endure without complaining ,how long one can hold on to his dreams working relentlessly..

 "Don't ever get complacent about your achievement" be RESTLESS. Be Restless to make yourself an artist in whatever art you indulge in , be restless to serve the poor and the society , be restless still you bring  the change in society that you want to see.

There were the words of Mandela after achieving the freedom for South Africa when he was in his mid 70's

"I have walked that long road to freedom.I have tried not to falter. I have had missteps along the way.But i have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill,one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.I have taken moment here to rest , to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance i have come.But i can rest only for a moment , for with the freedom comes responsibilities , and i dare not linger ,for my long walk is not yet ended"