Common man: It is a common scene in the early hours of the morning to see people walking briskly along the roads, public parks, lake fronts and other peaceful places. They are motivated people with a keen desire to gulp fresh air and to keep themselves in trim. Soon after, you can see cars, 3-wheelers and school buses ferrying children to schools. This represents the motivation of the parents from all walks of life and all strata of society to provide the benefit of learning to their children. In many cases, totally illiterate parents belonging to lowest rungs of the society, send their children to the best of public schools, because they want to pass on to their children those benefits, which they themselves could never get. As the sun rises, all roads in almost all directions witness a mad rush of people hurrying to their places of work. Who are these people? What makes them restless? What motivates them and keeps them going? They are ordinary people belonging to all types of age groups, castes, creeds and religions, drawn from different levels of our stratified society. The only thing common to them is a little spark that keeps them moving and goads them, to create a little niche for themselves for finding some place under the sun. Incidentally, this multitude has thrown up from time to time, some highly motivated and obsessed people, in almost all walks of life- art, culture, politics, science and business and in other fields of human endeavour. They have blazed trails, so that, others may see light and in the process, they have left indelible marks on the sands of time to facilitate the movement of others on those tracks. They became legends in their own times and are a perennial source of inspiration to all generations. Recall and reflect about some of these people and try to see, what all that means to you?
Motivation: Motivation is a desire, an urge and an obsession to do something. To do something better, something quicker. Everybody has that little spark in him. It may be latent, it may be dormant, but it is always there. It has a tremendous potential. When you start looking at it and start thinking about it, your perspectives, your environment and your world changes beyond recognition. Whatever be your origins, whatever be your caste, creed or religion, whatever be your social and political affiliations and regional and national affinities, whatever be your vocation and financial and other constraints and whatever be your likes or dislikes, everybody, who happens to stumble into this world has some dreams. Dreams are after all dreams. Motivation comes into play as soon as you like to have a shot at some of these dreams. Try to think. So far there are no constraints in this world on what you think, and where and to what heights, your dreams and thought processes can take you. Marshall your inherent urges and aspirations and try to see, what you can do and what you will like to do. And then put your body and soul into it. And you will see that a different you, awaits you.
Survival: The world has witnessed the urges, aspirations, pangs, privations, sufferings and struggles of motivated people at all times and all through the ages. History of civilization is the history of such urges, aspirations and struggles of a continuous chain of highly motivated people. In the distant past, the primitive man used to roam about in the jungles, full of wild animals with all types of hazards at all steps, in search for food and shelter. The urge for keeping the body and soul together was stronger than all the risks, trials and tribulations. As time rolled on and the man developed a family, tribe or community, the common quest for food, shelter, safety and security provided necessary motivation and bonds for survival. Thereafter, for thousands of years, there were continuous conflicts for dominance and survival almost in all countries of the world. These conflicts and struggles of the people for survival have provided all the inspiration for the chronicles and folklore of the poets all over the world. To-day, every family, every community, every region, every country and the society as such, is stratified. Rich are very rich and have an obsession to grab almost everything to become richer and more powerful. Poor and underprivileged are becoming poorer and are struggling to survive with backs to the wall. Survival has different meanings for different people. For those who reach the top, there is an unending motivation for clinging to their gains, while for those on the lowest rungs of the society, there is nagging motivation to survive and keep the body and soul together.
Looking back: Motivation is a germ, which may or may not be visible. As and when it spreads, it shakes a man, it makes him restless. It is a sort of obsession, which has no ends. Men were on the move from place to place, from continent to continent, even during pre-historic times. Nobody knows what motivated them for such movements and how many of them succeeded in their efforts and how many of them perished in the endeavour. However, the footprints of such movements and the traces of people, who were able to make it are scattered all over the earth. As times rolled on, people continued to move from place to place, in almost all directions, by land and sea for business or settlement. This was followed by some inquisitive travelers, who undertook difficult, nerve-raking and hazardous journeys through wild forests and inhospitable terrain to spend time with unknown and sometimes hostile people for providing records of the social, economic and political conditions of that age and diversities of the global community. At the same time, sailors from almost all countries of the world, were setting sails on the seven seas for the discovery of new lands, new routes, and new people. These attempts were like leaps into the unknown carrying with them, all types of hazards and sacrifices and in many cases involving unending bouts of sickness, starvation and oblivion. Later on warlords, invaders or marauding hordes tore down through all lands for lust, personal gain and glory. Gradually, communities grew into empires, countries or nations, from considerations of peace, prosperity and survival. Subsequently, as peace found a foothold, arts, science, industrial activity and commerce flourished. Arts, science and technology gradually pushed the wheels of commerce and industry, shrinking all differences and distances, enabling men to see men as men and for carving out the tracks for common market, unified social, economic and political institutions and what may be considered as the trends for globalisation. This has given rise to super-rich, super-powerful jet setters and globe trotters, who like to be branded as masters of management, jugglery and manipulation, capaple of sucking out all the surplus and life-blood from almost everywhere.
The marginalized: Almost all countries of the world have large sections of people, who are living below subsistence level. They continue to struggle to make the two ends meet and to keep the body and soul together. The difference from country to country is only in numbers. In some countries, the marginalized may be more than 80% of the population, Even in some of the most developed countries of the world, the number of marginalized may touch 10% to 15%. By and large, for most of the countries the numbers hover round 40% to 50%. Billions of dollars are being spent by all countries, international agencies and charitable institutions for providing relief to these people, year after year, but, there does not appear to be any light at the end of the tunnel and barring some exceptions, nobody seems to be stumbling anywhere near a solution of the problem of marginalized people.
Who are these marginalized people? They are small farmers, landless labour, small traders and vendors, artisans and craftsmen, members of the organized and unorganized workforce and most of the rural folk or tribals, who have almost no work or very little work to do. You can find them living on footpaths, night shelters, charitable homes, jhuggies and jhopries, slums and neighbourhoods on city fringes and even in muilti-storeyed buildings in big towns. Relief measures include social welfare support, food stamps, food parcels, subsidized food outlets under public distribution system, sale of food grains at nominal rates and projects like food for work or employment guarantee schemes. The general impression and the common rants and rumblings about them are that bulk of the marginalized are unemployable and most of them do not have the will or motivation to work. Look to their blank faces and starry eyes. They manage to survive under all odds, always hoping against hope for better days. How is it that some of the brightest and most innovative and successful people of the world have risen from the ranks of this motley crowd and under-rated heap of marginalized people? Since, times immemorial all emperors, conquerors and armies of the world have leaned heavily on these marginalized people for filling up the blanks in the ranks of their armies during times of peace and for providing cannon fodder during war. The wheels of trade, commerce, industry and almost all types of development projects in all countries of the world depend primarily on the manpower drawn from the ranks of these marginalized people. Kings, emperors, dictators and governments of all democratic countries of the world need the support of these dumb followers for putting them into positions of authority and then to lift them to high pedestals, where they may keep clinging to the levers of power. Marginalised people may have no identity of their own and they may remain unknown, unsung and ridiculed throughout their lives, but how can we deny that they are the most sought after people for lending a shoulder and support to all those people, who carry the mantle of being the greatest, most powerful and most motivated and successful people of the world. You have to keep moving. Most people follow the beaten path and are happy to lead a peaceful and hassle-free life.
You are a teacher. You have a reasonably well defined role in the institution. Your tasks are cut out and your options seem to be limited. Get reconciled to it and you can spend the rest of your life like that. Most people do that. They lead a hassle free life and live peacefully ever after. Give a second thought to it. You have the privilege of belonging to an institution and have got an opportunity of growing with the institution. Your relationship with the institution is extremely flexible and depending on your perceptions and responses, there is unlimited scope for you to think, act, react, and blaze trails, if you want to. Your sense of dedication and attachment to the institution can set into motion, some very dynamic thought processes, which can provide fresh dimensions to your life. The whole perspective can change, your tasks can find a new meaning and you can see that, after all, in spite of all the limitations and constraints that you face from day to day, in your work in the institution, there is tremendous scope for breaking new ground and following bold initiatives. Try to think, whether you really feel that there are any limits to what you can do for the institution and the heights upto which you can rise and can carry your institution with you. Have you ever thought about the future of those budding youngsters, who have been placed in your charge and with whom you react and interact everyday. It is rather difficult to define a relationship between the teacher and the taught. However, you may have seen that, if the teacher is slightly sensitive and responsive, he soon realizes that the relationship between the teacher and the taught is very special and significant. It induces the teacher to get down to the level of the taught and to collect, improvise and give to the taught, all that is needed by him and perhaps much more. That defines one of your roles and shapes some of the tasks facing you. This is one of the areas where your initiatives can have unlimited scope and you can play with them all your life. And of course there are a host of other things which you can choose and pick up from the institution, which can put you on a pedestal someday. Try to think. You know that, so far there are no constraints in this world on what you think, and where and to what heights, your thought processes can take you. Marshall your inherent urges and aspirations and try to see, what you can do and what you will like to do. And then put your body and soul into it. And you will see that a different you, awaits you.
Some motivational initiatives in the institutions : We used to form the sections of our classes on the the basis of academic merit. The teachers of leading sections were not expected to follow the syllabus literally. They had a lot of flexibility to skip what the students already knew and to include something better and more challenging. In the process we got an opportunity to equip the students of these sections in a slightly better manner, thereby, providing to them with a cutting edge, which was very helpful to them in the pursuit of future career opportunities. Similarly, the teachers of the weakest sections had the flexibility to cover the syllabus in a selective manner. The emphasis was on proper understanding and assimilation of what was taught, thereby ensuring that they complete the course successfully and develop sufficient confidence and intellectual conviction, to face the future with assurance and fortitude. It is not something, which the so called academicians normally like to do. The mute point is, what motivated us to do all that and what did it mean to the lives of all those budding youngsters?
At some time, we had about 1000 students on rolls of our institution. We used to to have about 600 to 800 students on the playgrounds in the evenings, everyday. What brought them to the grounds and what was the motivation for mass participation in outdoor games activities? Moreover, what kept them there, day after day and what did they carry, when they left the institution ? Similarly, we had occasions for mass participation of students in athletics activities in the institution on independence day. Sometimes, as many as 950 students participated in the 100 metres dash and most of the students participated in the contests for other individual events. What was the motivation? What brought them to the grounds and what kept them swatting continuously for two hectic days. The significant part is that they enjoyed swatting, they never regretted it and this infection became an integral part of their life, which encouraged them to swat in almost every activity they chose to undertake thereafter.
We used to have an open house on the annual day of the institution. Every student prepared a demonstrative chart or model on that occasion and was involved in some creative activity. Students had all the initiative and they handled the regular stream of parents, guests and visitors to the institution and conducted them round the institution, with natural pride and enthusiasm, answering all sorts of querries and explaining to them the contributions of the students and the faculty in the development and growth of the institution. What did it mean to them and what does it mean to us? These little incidents and many such activities mould the lives of individuals and ultimately determine the shape and character of the country.
In the context, you can recall some of your experiences and may be, the words of Vivekanand may start tinkling in your ears: Arise, awake and stop not, till the goal is reached.
Motivation and the common man : It is a common scene in the early hours of the morning to see people walking briskly along the roads, public parks, lake fronts and other peaceful places. They are motivated people with a keen desire to gulp fresh air and to keep themselves in trim. Soon after, you can see cars, three wheelers and school busses ferrying children to schools. This represents the motivation of the parents from all walks of life and all strata of society to provide the benefit of learning to their children. In many cases, totally illiterate parents belonging to lowest rungs of the society, send their children to the best of public schools, because they want to pass on to their children those benefits, which they themselves could never get. As the sun rises, all roads in almost all directions witness a mad rush of people hurrying to their places of work. Who are these people? What makes them restless? What motivates them and keeps them going? They are ordinary people belonging to all types of age groups, castes, creeds and religions, drawn from different levels of our stratified society. The only thing common to them is a little spark that keeps them moving and goads them, to create a little niche for themselves, to find a place under the sun. Incidentally, this multitude has thrown up from time to time, some highly motivated and obsessed people, in almost all walks of life- art, culture, politics, business and in other fields of human endeavour. They have blazed the trails, so that others may see light and have left indeliable marks on the sands of time to facilitate the movement of others on those tracks. They became legends in their own times and are a perennial source of inspiration to all generations. Recall and reflect about some of these people and try to see, what all that means to you?
Conclusion : The world has witnessed the urges, aspirations, pangs, privations, sufferings and struggles of motivated people at all times and all through the ages. History of civilization is the history of such urges, aspirations and struggles of a continuous chain of highly motivated people. Motivation does not see any barriers imposed by caste, creed or religion. It transcends national and regional boundaries. It is for us to see, what we can do to make our world and the world of teeming billions slightly better than what it is and of course blaze trails, if we want to.