Lose your identity – focus on the inner 'I'

M Sadagopan *

'I cover my face and hit the base', quipped a colleague of mine. Not the confession of a rapist, but, far from that, words of wisdom – and, if taken as a precept, worth following – meaning that you should give up your identity for a cause that you stand for. There are two ingredients to greatness here.

The first part-covering your face – calls for standing for a cause larger than yourself. It involves losing your identity, the egoistic "I", in the pursuit of such a cause, come what may.

By the Pareto principle, the world goes by such greats, who, 'sleepless themselves, give others sleep'. They stand for cause, while others, capitalising on that, run for an effect. It calls for endurance – not stoic, but active – in full acceptance that it may be a weed instead of a fish, that after all your labour, you may at last pull up, realizing that the journey is always worth the making, even if the end may not be in sight. But, oftener than not, the end is likely to be in sight, and is mostly achieved, with such a will that trounces the egoistic self!

Life is a long distance race, and it is not the fastest and the physically strongest who invariably wins the race, but he who has the will, and flinches not, enduring the pain the longest!

"Life's battles do not always go
To the stronger and faster man,
But, sooner or later, the man who wins,
Is the man who thinks he can!"

Concern about the lower "I" ( the body than the spirit), diminishes your focus and makes you run for an effect – more personal.

And standing for a cause is what ultimately gets you a picture larger than yourself. Even in a practical human relationship, if you invest ego into your perception, you cannot interact with anybody with a sense of integrity. This need to search for the inner "I" is brought out in Emily Durkhein"s spat at narcissism : 'When man invented the mirror, he began to lose his soul!'.

The second ingredient in such a mission (the first one, as above, in fact, being more of a vision) is FOCUS – to hit the base. The will and focus, act and interact on each other, and enable you to successfully play with the cards nature has given you without craving for multiple goals beyond your 'tunnel vision' and losing yourself and the focused goal in the process.

It is this ingredient, focus, that Tennyson focus-es on in 'Ulysses' when he muses:
"Full many a temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by Time and Fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find,
And not to yield!"

If you lose your identity for a cause larger than yourself, you get an instrument – an inner strength – called FOCUS, which expands as 'Follow One Course Until Successful'!

Let us all follow such a course and succeed!