THE DIAMONDS AND THE EAGLE

Just a while ago, Seema Iyer, a dear old-student of mine, who now lives with her wonderful family in North India, posted this comment on my yesterday’s Post:

“You put to words what most of us think, feel, experience...

You have talent Gerry sir... keep it flowing!”

So, when my dear student wrote on my Time-line, from miles afar, that I have talent, how did I feel?

 

No matter how simple and humble I try to project myself to be before this world, the truth – which I can not hide from me, at least – is this: I felt like a mighty eagle!

Didn’t I know my own talent?

There was a time, I didn’t. 

It was only when some wonderful people, like now Seema, came around me to remind me of it, that I actually began to believe in my own hidden talent…my special God-given gift, my endowment.

Yes, yes, we need people like Seema around us – all along our way – to keep reminding us about our hidden strengths and talents… We need these cheerleaders… to scream from the wayside, “Come on, keep flowing… keep going!”

I am sure, 

even the most gifted souls on this planet – 

the brightest of the brightest stars – 

also need this reminder, 

this re-assurance. 

All of us are endowed with our own special strengths and talents. Some of us recognize them and go about expressing them to the fullest… while, some of us simply fail to notice them till the end. Unmistakably, this is one of the greatest tragedies of human life... To spend a life-time on ‘acres of diamonds’ and yet unable to notice the treasure right beneath our own feet! 

Yes, I still remember, how inspired I had felt when I first read that famous essay - ‘Acres of Diamonds’ by Russell H. Conwell. He wrote it, more than a century ago, when there was no Internet - which you and I use now - to transmit it across the globe. He spent his life-time going around the places to deliver his famous message: “Friend, dig right below your own feet; you walk on  acres of diamonds!” 

That was   Mr. Conwell’s special gift… and, he unwrapped it, so gloriously, before he died!

Somebody has to come and remind us sometimes, “Look, my friend, you are special; you are an eagle!”

I am not tired of telling this story, even if I tell it a life-time!

“One day, a farmer, in a far away village, found an eagle’s egg on the mountainside. He brought it home and placed it among the chicken eggs. When the eggs hatched, along with little chicks was also born this little baby of an eagle. As time passed by, the eagle began to grow up and behave exactly the way the chickens did. He scratched, pecked and clucked like everyone around him did… He did not know who he really was. He was born with the chickens who scratched, pecked and clucked… so what he did… so what he thought himself to be: a chicken!

Then, one bright day, he saw a majestic sight in the sky. Fascinated by what he was beheld of, he asked the ones around him, “Who is that?”

“An eagle,” the chickens around him said, “the king of the birds!”

A familiar feeling began to gush through his heart. “Why can’t we fly as gloriously as he can?” he asked the chickens around him.

“Because, we are just chickens,” justified the ones around, “we are not born to fly like him!”

This story is told and retold by every motivational teacher, down the ages. And, this has the same open-end.

Some teachers tell, that the eagle believed in what the chickens around him had said: “We are not born to fly!”… therefore, he went on to live, for the rest of his life, like a chicken… and, one day, he died!

And yes, some teachers tell, that when he saw the eagle among the chicken, the mighty eagle in the sky had shouted, “What on earth are you doing, there, my young friend; you are an eagle!”…and, the young eagle, all inspired by what he had just heard, shot up into the glorious skies, to which, he truly belonged!”

Yes, my dear Seema, in Life, all of us have these two open-end choices:

Either to listen to the pecking-and-clucking chickens around us; or, to the roaring-and -soaring eagle, the King of the birds!”

Thank you.

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Manoj Nair