So yesterday I wrote about my muddled search for a personal idol and not trusting it to be single fallible person or even a group of famous people I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual realization.
It’s true I do not have a single role model because what I have had are thousands of role models. Every single person I have met in my life has had their faults but then each and every one of them also had something I could admire, emulate and desire.
Starting from my Mom’s enormous thirst for knowledge; to my Dad’s sunny optimism and literary bent; to my wife’s uber cool non-sanctimonious nature; to my kids’ infectious curiosity.
Among my friends I have been encouraged by seeing someone taking control of their diet and body, to someone sacrificing their career for their family, to someone having the courage to rejoin the work force after years of homemaking, to someone leaving a cushy job to follow their dreams.
I have picked up tips from people tasteful décor, to their knowledge of wine and food, I have acquired gems of philosophy from a barely literate rustic, discovered the ability to step back and laugh from staid old maids, learnt how to maintain my ethics and integrity from a go getting ambitious woman. Found the value of empathy from a boss who realizes you have a life beyond work and from the lunch lady who smiles and relaxes each new comer. Understood 'love thy neighbor' from a neighbor who helps you above and beyond what’s required.
Note I have never been reticent about the qualities I see. I bring it up and mention it constantly, sometimes I have been accused of insincere flattery. People who do not realize I’m only highlighting qualities they themselves should be aware and so what if I embellish it with a few over the board adjectives. Sometime we ourselves are not aware of the heroic qualities we posses or even the rare greatness of character that shines through.
So that’s my unassuming suggestion to anyone like me who does not have a role model. Look around; there are mentors all around, little tidbits you can glean from nearly every one you meet. If you pick up all the disparate things you admire in the varied people you meet you really would/could become that supreme idol worth worshipping.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Idle Idol Worship
Some time ago a friend asked me who did I idolize. As I visibly struggled to think of a role model, he good naturedly mocked me saying "You probably think you are too good to have an idol".
His words stuck with me as I thought more and more about it. Was it my ego that made me assume that I did not need to look up to anyone?
Recently I was sort of introduced via a dear friend to someone who has accomplished everything I have dreamt of. He is an air force officer, a national award winner, has the extremely rare achievement of circumventing the earth, and to top it all is a published author, probably witty and personable too. Sadly I never followed up on a possible friendship, what if he turned out to be arrogant and condescending, or even dismissive. What if on a personality level we did not have anything in common? I had him on too high a pedestal to risk the falling off so I just kept my distance. Foolish? I agree. My neuroses? probably. Irrational? surely.
It’s true that I don't/can't worship anyone; it is true I do not wish to emulate anyone. I think it just not restricted to me but true for a lot of us. It actually may be really common in our modern cynical society. We all have seen the so called inspirational leaders with feet of clay. The more you read, the more you listen, the more you observe, the more you realize no one is perfect.
Role models and idols should be the fulcrum of leadership. People, whom you read, emulate and try to define your success by how close you can come to copying their mannerisms, choices and lifestyles. But in this day and age when everyone's life has been picked apart, we know no one is perfect.
Look at the great figures of recent history; Mother Teresa has been criticized for using her charitable work to promote her Catholic beliefs; Gandhi for general abandonment of his own family; Martin Luther King Jr. for allegations of infidelity; Even Jesus using violence when he ran the people out of the temple. You realize People are just people; human beings are mortal feeble beings. So we stop expecting them to be super men. And we take the cynical viewpoint of being our own idol.
That relief I felt at knowing I was not really egoistic was tinged with disappointment at my inability to have a role model. As Ben Johnson said “Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.”
So was I a fool?, someone who thought was even above Aristotle whose idea of virtue ethics relies largely on the effects role models have on people.
So I went back to reflecting and realized something wonderful, More about that later……
His words stuck with me as I thought more and more about it. Was it my ego that made me assume that I did not need to look up to anyone?
Recently I was sort of introduced via a dear friend to someone who has accomplished everything I have dreamt of. He is an air force officer, a national award winner, has the extremely rare achievement of circumventing the earth, and to top it all is a published author, probably witty and personable too. Sadly I never followed up on a possible friendship, what if he turned out to be arrogant and condescending, or even dismissive. What if on a personality level we did not have anything in common? I had him on too high a pedestal to risk the falling off so I just kept my distance. Foolish? I agree. My neuroses? probably. Irrational? surely.
It’s true that I don't/can't worship anyone; it is true I do not wish to emulate anyone. I think it just not restricted to me but true for a lot of us. It actually may be really common in our modern cynical society. We all have seen the so called inspirational leaders with feet of clay. The more you read, the more you listen, the more you observe, the more you realize no one is perfect.
Role models and idols should be the fulcrum of leadership. People, whom you read, emulate and try to define your success by how close you can come to copying their mannerisms, choices and lifestyles. But in this day and age when everyone's life has been picked apart, we know no one is perfect.
Look at the great figures of recent history; Mother Teresa has been criticized for using her charitable work to promote her Catholic beliefs; Gandhi for general abandonment of his own family; Martin Luther King Jr. for allegations of infidelity; Even Jesus using violence when he ran the people out of the temple. You realize People are just people; human beings are mortal feeble beings. So we stop expecting them to be super men. And we take the cynical viewpoint of being our own idol.
That relief I felt at knowing I was not really egoistic was tinged with disappointment at my inability to have a role model. As Ben Johnson said “Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.”
So was I a fool?, someone who thought was even above Aristotle whose idea of virtue ethics relies largely on the effects role models have on people.
So I went back to reflecting and realized something wonderful, More about that later……
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