MAKING A DIFFERENCE, QUIETLY
“If you cannot feed a hundred people, feed one.”
Mother
Teresa
The
idea of making a difference in this
world is a noble one. No doubt about it. So, when most of us have this desire
in us to make a difference in this world, there should not be any surprise,
too.
What should be surprising is
this fact: Often, our idea of ‘making a difference’ is a ‘grand and glamorous’ one. In
other words, it seems unfashionable to go about making small differences and quietly.
That’s why, perhaps, every Pageant Queen – be it Miss Universe or Miss World –
gets the loudest applause when she declares from the glittery stage – “The
person who inspires me the most is Mother Teresa’!
“Where are all the Beauty Queens
– Miss Universes and Miss Worlds?” I, often, wonder. They may have become rich
and famous by becoming movie stars or whatever – but, none of them has ever walked
the footsteps of the ‘Simple Saint from Calcutta’…
It’s tough to give with my right hand and let left hand not know
about it… It’s tough to be anonymous… A behind-the-scene person! We are a
generation of ‘big numbers’ – promoes, optics, viewerships, virals, subscribers,
tweets and re-tweets, trendings, trollings, followers – yes, this is our new-age
vocabulary.
A couple
of months ago, when a 15-year-old boy expressed his desire to become a ‘great’
guitarist, I asked him to spend a great deal of time on the guitar. I knew of another
young man, who was passionate about playing the guitar. He had just started a
YouTube channel to share some of his work. When I urged this 15-year-old to
check it out on YouTube, he quickly did. His reaction was quick, too: “But,
Sir, he has only 50 views!”
“How many do you expect
whenever you start one?” I questioned.
“I want mine to go viral – 100-million
views, at least.”
That’s how it is, when it
comes to ‘making a difference in this world’, too… We all want to begin with a
bang… We want it bigger, louder… viral!
Each one of us has the capacity
to make a difference in this world. Mercifully, most of us do make a difference.
What may not happen is that ‘viral thing’…
Last evening, my friend Bharat*
sent to my house a box of fresh, export-quality mangoes! Apparently, he gets
every year a couple of boxes from one of his close friends who has a farm in
Ratnagiri. This summer, Bharat remembered me and arranged to send a box (two
dozen) to me quietly, and he surprised me. We are five at home, except my son,
rest of us are diabetic. Do we need to finish the entire box? Or, can we, too,
surprise, in return, by giving away, say, two or three mangoes each to our maid servant and some
friends or neighbours around us? Just asking.
A girl, who was too busy broadcasting
her Leo Club Charity/Leadership programmes, hadn’t done her small assignments (given
by me) consecutively three times. Yesterday, I teased her, “Honey, shouldn’t
charity begin at home, and shouldn’t leadership begin with taking charge of one’s
daily commitments?”
A group of my students had not
bothered to acknowledge my Zoom invite, for many days. “Guys, am I supposed to
teach you the basic courtesy of acknowledging my invites, too?” I asked, annoyed.
“Another 16-year-old, from
another group, did acknowledge with ‘OK’.
I teased her, “Dear, only OK or
OK Sir?”
“Sorry Sir,” came the
immediate correction.
“Beta, I just wanted to
tell you, that there is a world of difference, now!” I informed her with a smiling
emoji.
Why is
this obsession in us to make a difference in this world with a bang and
broadcast it, when it’s so much possible to touch lives in small ways and quietly?
Somewhere, someone has brainwashed
us, that we should be loud to be heard, and glamorous to ne noticed… that, we
should be a Mother Teresa or a Nelson Mandela to make a difference in this world…
I don’t have a friend who has
a mango farm in Ratnagiri. But, I have a friend who has a friend with a mango
farm in Ratnagiri. But, these things don’t make a difference at all, unless and
until we all have a simple heart that believes in quietly giving – whatever we
can!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic's: pixabay
Video: Naik Foundation
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