Positive Mental Attitude

 

Two top cricketers from New Zealand – Daniel Vettori and Brendon Mcullum – held back announcing their retirement from international Cricket after their defeat in World Cup final for a couple of days. They could have done so immediately after the final game was over. Yet they chose to delay it. The reason: they wanted the winning team to hog all the lime light! They did not want their announcement of retirement news to be a distraction. Their thought process – so noble and so graceful!

One of my colleagues is blind by birth. I was fortunate to work with him for about nine months. He would chat endlessly. He would mingle freely with all. The confidence in him was so evident in every act of his. He conducts himself in such a routine manner that it ‘blinds’ him to his ‘blindness’!

I was waiting for the lift to arrive at the ground-floor to take me to my flat on the 4^th floor. When it arrived, the gate opened and a tiny-tot walked out. Behind the baby was a man on all fours. A man with both legs incapacitated below knee-cap. He called out to the bubbly tiny-tot even as he ‘effortlessly’ eased his way past me. It took me a lot of ‘effort’ to digest that the Man could move about in such matter-of-factly manner, so oblivious of his limitations!

There are life lessons to be learnt from these outstanding characters. The two cricketers tell us to be graceful in defeat. They tell us to remain grounded. They tell us to shun one-upmanship. My colleague ‘blinds’ me to all the misgivings. He constantly reminds me to ‘see’ the bigger picture. What can I say about the Man I met on the lift who could barely ‘lift’ himself up yet shows such tremendous mental resolve that enables him to dissolve all his physical limitations.

We, for all our physical abilities, pale in comparison. We crib and cringe. They don’t. We sulk and frown. They don’t. They have become my friends for life as I  draw inspiration from their positive mental attitude.