Words of Fire: A tribute to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was once asked:

What would you like to be remembered as: A renowned scientist, a successful technocrat or a popular president of India?
His answer: A good teacher.

It was a fitting finale to a lifetime of accomplishments that he passed away doing what he loved: Teaching to students.

Today on Guru Pournima day ("Teachers' Days" in Indian culture), here's my tribute to Dr Kalam sir: A collection of inspirational and enlightening passages from his autobiography "Wings of Fire."

May his soul rest in peace; and may his words continue to guide and motivate us. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WINGS OF FIRE---by APJ ABDUL KALAM

----------------------

• The difference between an energetic and a confused person is the way their minds handle their experiences.

• We need our difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

Accept your destiny and go ahead with your life. Forget the failure; it was essential to lead you to your destined path. Search for your true purpose of your existence.

• Anyone who has taken the responsibility to lead a team can be successful only if he is sufficiently intelligent and powerful in his own right to become a person to reckon with. This is also the path to individual success in life. What can one do to strengthen oneself ?

First , by building your own education and skills. Knowledge is a tangible asset, the most important tool in your work. You must have the most up-to-date information. A leader should keep abreast of all that is happening around him. To lead, is to engage in continuing education.

Second, develop a passion for personal responsibility. Work for the things you believe in.

• All of us carry some sort of super-intelligence within us. Let it be stimulated to enable us to examine our deepest thoughts, desires and beliefs.

Work as hard as you can at something that presents a challenge and is approved by your heart.

• The trouble is that we often merely analyse life instead of dealing with it. People dissect their failures for causes and effects , but seldom deal with them and gain experience to master them and thereby avoid their recurrence.

This is my belief: thru difficulties and problems, God gives us the opportunity to grow. So, when your hopes and dreams and goals are dashed, search among the wreckage, you may find a golden opportunity hidden in the ruins.

• One of the main driving forces is: Motive. It is the force which is internal to the individual and forms the basis of his behaviour in the work environment. Most people posses a strong drive for growth, competence, and self-actualization. The problem is the lack of a work-environment that stimulates and permits them to give a full expression to this drive.

• Most of the time, communication gets confused with conversation. In fact , the two are distinctly different. A conversation full of pleasantries is often devoid of any useful information, whereas the communication is meant only for the exchange of information.
• Your willingness to invest your own inner resources to invest your life , esp. your imagination, will bring you success. When you undertake a task from your own uniquely individual standpoint , you will become a person.

A basic aspect of a person’s working style is how he plans and organizes tasks.

• At one extreme end is the meticulous planner, who carefully spells out each step before making any move. With a sharp eye for what can possibly go wrong, he tries to cover all contigencies. At the other end is the fast mover, who weaves and dodges without a plan. Inspired by an idea, the fast mover is always ready for action.
• Another aspect of a person's working style is control- the energy and attention devoted to ensuring that things happen in a certain way. At one extreme is the tight controller, a strict administrator with frequent checkpoints. Rules and policies are to be followed with religious fervor. At the opposite end are those who move with freedom and flexibility. They have little patience for bureaucracy.

To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal. Such individuals are called "workaholics". The term is misleading because it implies a pathological condition or an illness. If I do that which I desire more than anything else in the world and which makes me happy, such work can never be an aberration.

Total commitment is a crucial quality for those who want to reach the very top of their profession. The desire to work at optimum capacity leaves hardly any room for anything else. Total commitment is the common denominator among all successful men and women.

FLOW is a sensation we experience when we act with total involvment. There is no hurry, there are no distracting demands. The past and future disapear. So does the distinction between self and activity.

• Everything solid contains great space within and everything stationary contains great movements within. It is as though as the great dance of Shiva is being performed on Earth during every moment of our existence.

• Desire , when it stems from the heart and the spirit, when it is pure and intense, possesses awesome electromagnetic energy. This energy is released into the space each night , as the mind falls to sleep. Each morning it returns to the conscious state reinforced with the cosmic currents. That which has been imaged will be surely and certainly be manifested. You can rely, young man, upon this ageless promise as surely as you can rely upon the eternally unbroken promise of sunrise.

As the process of confronting and solving problems often requires hard work and is painful, we have endless procrastination. Actually, problems can be the cutting edge that actually distinguishes between the success and the failure. They draw out innate courage and wisdom.

• Performance dimensions are factors that lead to creation. They go beyond the competencies such as skills and knowledge of a person. They exist at various levels of human personality. At behavioural level, the outermost ring, we can observe skills and measure knowledge. Social roles and self-image form the intermediate level. Motives and traits exist at the core level. If we can identify those performance dimensions that are most highly co-related, with a job, we can use them for outstanding performance.

• The kingdom of God is within you, in the form of internal power  to help you achieve your goals and realize your dreams. There are many different types and levels that turn this internal power reaction critical. Sometimes, when we are ready , the gentlest contacts with him fill us with insight and wisdom. This could come from an encounter with another person, from a word, a question, a gesture , or even a look. It could come thru a book , a conversation, a line from a poem , or the mere sight of a picture. Without the slightest warning , something new breaks into your life and a secret decision is taken, a decision that you may be completely unconscious of , to start with.

Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God to fulfill a particular role. Whatever we achieve, is through His help and as an expression of His will. We are all born with a divine fire within us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------