Wake up to a new you
By I.M. Soni

IF you think that you are just drifting, like a waif, in the stormy waters of life, you need not sink in despair or depression. For, you can acquire a meaningful life and an alive mind. You can shed your "cabbage" image and bring about a revolutionary change in the new year (read century).

There is no magic about it. It can be summed up in a few words: look upon yourself as a unique person, a live wire who loves to fashion his life with his own effort and work rather than look for crutches and lean on others. This attitude helps you to understand yourself — your weaknesses, and strengths.

Once, this realisation dawns, your alert and alive mind gives you means of improving yourself because it shows your innate strength, mental stamina, and thus enables you to grapple with difficulties, grasp opportunities and take you out of your mental dark hole.

A person with a sleepy mind is blinked at by his colleagues and boss whereas one with an active mind and ready responses, is appreciated, liked and given important assignments. This is because he is identified with his office, institution or organisation.

In the former category come watch-watchers. They come to office to mark their "presence." Work or duty is distant from their mentally-clicking watch. They are like Jerome K. Jerome who said: "I love work. I can sit and watch it for hours".

To the latter category belong those who volunteer to deal with difficult work, come to office on or before time, quickly grasp instructions, produce results, and ask for more difficult work which others shirk. They are the people for whom it is said: If you want to get a job done, give it to a busy man.

Understand the world. This is the crux and the core of life. You become a better human being because you see what is going on on your limited horizon.

When you take a greater part in social affairs, and other dimensions of it, you get a vital feeling of belonging to the world around you. This is the cornerstone of satisfaction, fulfilment and happiness. Life is essentially giving, not taking.

"Cabbages", sunk in themselves, do not realise that this approach banishes boredom, a malady of the modern man with plenty of spare time at his disposal.

Purposefulness, which is another name of direction in life, provides you with a ‘weather-cock’.

Here are some new year resolutions.

Make your will-power the master of your body in small things. When you want something big, it will be easy to get it. Pare your nails regularly. You will write your assignments regularly, too.

People are interested in people. They are similar in many ways but even then each is different. The wife of the governor and that of his dhobi are both women but they are two different individuals.

You may be an expert and a knowledgeable person but that does not mean you are an encyclopaedia on two legs. You, too, can learn. Brilliant people in any field do have a humble willingness to add to their store of information. They are learners all their life.

Mental "dwarfs" frown upon learning. They go about life blindfolded, as it were. They are a bitter case of mental laziness.

One with a zestful mind looks for information, knowledge and learning even in unlikely places.

A genuine learner listens carefully to "freshers" in his field. Even as a teacher of journalism, I treated myself as a student, I have learnt a lot from my students — in many ways.

Have a hobby. If you already have one, take it with your heart — without being a dabbler. You can become an expert in that particular area. Involve your full being into it. Give yourself a cutting edge. An investment in information pays high interest!

The human mind thrives on hard work. To rest is to rust. Too much ease dulls it. It tends to go into stupor. Challenges renew its vigour. When you indulge in your hobby, you exercise your mental faculties while a stream of serenity flows in your mind.

Transformation of personality and other achievements follow when you, after planning your work, work your plan. For this, you do not have to consult astrologers. Do what you can with what you have where you are, today.