WE NEED TO BE INTERNALLY DRIVEN
WE NEED TO BE INTERNALLY DRIVEN, NOT EXTERNALLY
One day someone calls me and says,”You are the greatest person on this Earth. You rare doing a great job and I want you to know. I am honored to call my friend.” I know he is sincere. How does it make me feel? Great, definitely!! But the next day, he angrily picks up the phone, calls me and say,” You Rascal, you cheat, you Crook! You are the biggest fraud in the town.” How does this make me feel? Terrible, of course.
So the first day when he says, “you are the greatest guy,” I feel great and the next day when he says ,”You rascal,!! I felt terrible. Now who is controlling my life? Obviously it is he. For this reason, I can never get a single moment of serenity or solace. I always remain disturbed. Thus this is the consequence of being externally driven.
Is that the way I want to go through life? No not at all. For this, I need to be internally driven. When he calls me up and praises me, it is good to hear those words. But even if he does not say those words, in my own estimation. I am still a good human being. And the next day when he rips me apart, he cannot really ; because to me, to my feelings, to my conscience I am still a good human being. When people make statements like,” You make me angry,” the focus of control is external. But if I say,” I am angry or I choose to be angry,” the focus of control is internal. I should feel that no one can make me feel inferior without my permission. For this we should always have a positive self esteem and enough self-confidence in order to keep our backs straight.
There is a story about an ancient Indian sage who was called ugly names by a passerby. The sage listened un perturbed till the man ran out of words. He calmly stood up and asked the man,” If an offering is not accepted, to whom does it belong to?” The man replied,” It belongs to the person who offered it.”Then the sage said ,” I refuse to accept your offering,” and walked away silently leaving the man dazed. This sage was internally driven.
To achieve utmost happiness we should build up robust and positive character which is possible only if we are internally driven. We always try to find out the positive things from every aspect of human life. If we are internally driven ,even man’s strongest desire “Happiness” is internal. Happiness is like a butterfly .You run after it, it keeps flying away. If you stand still, it comes and sits on your shoulder.
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