Emanated Light

1. Many of us want to be stars—that is, extraordinary in our fields of work—yet we live with a mentality even more ordinary than the ordinary, which could be called simply vegetating in some corner, somehow surviving. Let me tell you the real story. There are actually two options. One: Live as an ordinary person. The idea that everyone must become extraordinary is a complete misconception. The truth is, not everyone can become extraordinary. There aren't that many positions for extraordinariness available on this earth. What matters is whether you can sleep peacefully without disturbing anyone else's sleep. Rather, do that work. I've seen that being ordinary in the right way—keeping yourself and others well—is itself quite an extraordinary thing. Two: If you truly want to be extraordinary, follow those who have walked or are constantly walking that special path. Notice how they make small mistakes too. If you can observe the mistakes, you'll find yourself unconsciously noticing what they do right as well. Learn about their lives properly. "Look, just with height and a deep voice, starting his journey with only a hundred rupees in his pocket, Amitabh Bachchan suddenly became a hero!" or "Look how Cristiano Ronaldo was born overnight!" These are nothing but Facebook propaganda, brother! The words "suddenly" and "overnight" used with these two men don't match our dictionary definitions in any way. Nobody in this world becomes something suddenly or overnight. It takes years of practice. So what should you do? Learn properly about that person you're a fan of, your favorite star or idol, and try to walk that path step by step.

This was about ordinariness and extraordinariness. Some people live between these two. They want to be extraordinary, but they focus more on the flaws of those they want to become like. Their attitude is: "I want to be like them, but they're not very good character-wise. They get involved in one relationship after another, there's no happiness in their lives. Never mind, it's better not to be like them." Along with some memorized sayings... "Even a wicked person should be abandoned if learned," and so on and so forth! Acting as if they could become something like that if they wanted to! Weak and incompetent people never lack ready-made arguments for self-justification. One of our classmates had failed his SSC. Another classmate of ours, who was among the top three in the Chittagong Board merit list, had a relationship break up while studying HSC first year. He was very upset about it. So that failed classmate of ours would sometimes say, "What's the use of standing first if this is what happens? I'm better off than him!" Looking at him, I'd say, "Brother, study properly so no more accidents happen!" And I'd think to myself, what else is incompetence! What people bring up to elevate themselves! There was no Facebook then, but if there had been, writing something like "Listen, Facebook brother, I am truth above all, nothing above that" would have made his path to heaven shine bright.

I see our neighborhood tea shop owner Keshob-da talking about Virat Kohli's arrogance, and though he doesn't want to prove himself as "modest despite having greater ability"—perhaps because he's the embodiment of humility—the pride keeps bursting from his mouth... arrogance leads to downfall dot dot dot! And over there Kohli... keeps hitting sixes! I listen to his words carefully and say, "Oh, uncle, give me another cup of milk tea! Add a bit more of the strong stuff!" But it's true, uncle makes quite good tea. Uncle sometimes adds a bit too much sugar to the tea—why Kohli doesn't say anything about that might be a source of regret for uncle! After all, everyone has their level of self-satisfaction!

Brother, listen. Keeping family, relatives, neighbors, the aunty next door, and everyone in the neighborhood happy, forcibly hanging on to a relationship or complicated matter like marriage, breaking up with someone over ridiculous flimsy arguments like "not giving enough time"—these are things we ordinary people do, while the extraordinary ones don't take even a second longer to make the right decision in such matters. Ordinary people keep themselves in unnecessary pain, they don't. (Where do they have the time!) Ordinary people take responsibility for keeping the whole world happy, they don't. Ordinary people keep blaming everyone in the world for their fate, while all complaints from the extraordinary are directed at themselves. Now you think about what you're really into!

Now notice, when I mentioned fans/idols in the early part of this point, you unconsciously placed yourself in the fan's position and the person you want to become like in the idol's position, without even realizing it. Yes, you read the rest of the writing thinking about them. Am I wrong?

So brother, the choice is now yours, since the life is yours. Be ordinary or extraordinary. You'll get nothing staying in between, nothing at all.

2. Just as staying in darkness for too long makes daylight unbearable, or how light seems nothing special, similarly, creating disorder in yourself, others, and certain systems over and over again, you'll one day lose the ability to distinguish between order and disorder.

3. If you're a very rational person, never try to fall in love with anyone. With logic, you can study logic, debate, have good arguments, become a lawyer. You can try those things. But if you must apply logic, do it before love begins. Once love happens, you might later mock your own and everyone else's logic and laugh at yourself. Or you'll cry profusely, thinking why you didn't understand and move forward carefully earlier. There's no greater foolishness than staying with a love that makes you cry.

4. If the person you're stealing for doesn't call you a thief in the end, assume that your theft—meaning taking their side or saving them—wasn't done properly! This can be said another way. If someone you've helped in life doesn't harm you or spread your criticism, you can assume your help wasn't done properly. So when stealing for someone, be prepared to swallow the thief's accusation from their own mouth, and when helping someone, move forward knowing for certain that you'll be harmed by them. The safest person is one who never helps anyone. I counseled a boy day after day, tolerated his misbehavior, and through nearly a year and a half of continuous effort and labor (without worldly gain), brought him back to normal life. Someone who was once severely suicidal, I completely healed. Then what? During my time of trouble, he tried his utmost to put me in even greater trouble. Then I understood that my sincerity in mentally healing him had no flaw!

5. Don't become so perfect in trying to perfect a task that you lose the very essence of the task! Many people, in trying to be too perfect and due to their finicky nature, can't even start a task properly, let alone complete it successfully. In most cases, that task never gets done by them. Let me give you an example. Suppose you're extremely hungry and you mix rice with delicious fried potatoes and thick lentils to eat heartily, satisfying both stomach and soul. Now after mixing the rice and eating one morsel, you think, no, the mixing wasn't right, let me mix it better. Oh, let me try mixing it with ghee and see how it turns out! Thinking this, you go looking for ghee. By the time you find the ghee, mix it with the rice, and make that "perfect morsel," you'll notice your hunger has died. You won't want to eat anymore. Even trying to force down two or three morsels will make you nauseous. So what does this mean? Right after the first morsel of rice, you have to eat the next morsel, however it tastes. Similarly, for many tasks, maintaining the sequence of work is the first priority, otherwise you'll find you've lost interest in that task. It might even happen that just as you couldn't complete that task then, you might never be able to do it again in life. Boredom or fear of failure will enter your mind.

6. If this corona hadn't come, we would never have known how many people dress up smartly, leave home to chat at tea shops, play cards and carrom, and somehow manage to eliminate corona through Facebook from home without being doctors or scientists, and consider passing time by producing made-up wisdom about corruption from a hundred years ago and a hundred years in the future as the "very important work at home" they've been claiming all along! During this corona period, two classes of people have become busier—beggars and the honorable admins of various nonsensical Facebook pages and groups. Ah, how this corona came and exposed so many useless people's masks! I have a younger brother. He's unemployed himself, hasn't achieved much in life yet, but goes around motivating people on Facebook. Ah, the world is cute! These days BBA and motivation have become very precious things, like two-penny cigarettes... available at paan-cigarette shops—you'll find them on the streets!

7. One of the main tools for success is self-confidence. Many of us feel very shy when speaking English or Hindi. We think, what if I make mistakes, let me learn a bit more! Then my English will be perfect. Besides, I understand very well when I listen, so I should be able to speak well too... Brother, this isn't called confidence, this is called foolish overconfidence. Because no matter how much you grow up listening to and reading another language, when you try to speak, you'll find yourself completely fumbling! There's a huge difference between understanding and being able to speak. If you don't believe it... please, do try this at home!

Now let me turn to the question: what do we mean by confidence? If someone, despite having limited knowledge of English, Hindi, or other foreign languages, stands before ten people at a seminar or an important meeting and begins speaking with all their mistakes intact—this is what we call confidence. While we may initially laugh at the person who speaks incorrectly, the real object of ridicule should be the one who never even tried to speak. Success is bound to come knocking at the door of someone who speaks before a crowd despite knowing little, despite grammatical errors, despite mispronunciations. Do you remember the FM Method? Even domestic help could speak English after attending their coaching centers. How was this possible? The human brain is truly a wondrous thing. First, you must tell it, “Yes, I can do this!” The rest follows gradually. While we may publicly mock Hero Alom, deep down many of us dream of going “viral” like him. I personally believe that however foolish he may seem, he is actually quite confident and successful. In his position, you or I might have ended up pushing handcarts. For someone like him, he’s doing everything within his capacity. Being able to utilize one’s full potential—that itself is no small achievement.

A mistake is cutie cutie,
You need to do it sweetie sweetie!
Everyday you have to do at least a mistake as your first duty,
Then, success will be beauty beauty!
(Try translating this properly into Bengali and Hindi if you can!)

8. Politics is a wonderful thing, a vast platform… for serving the nation. Politics exists in two places: either in a person’s blood, or in their mind. This too is a realm of intense passion. Therefore, those who have it neither in their blood nor in their mind, yet succeed in politics purely through luck, constitute merely two to three percent. Sadly but truly, in our country, many of those who possess both these qualities never enter politics at all, or pay no heed to the importance of these two things. And among those who do engage in politics, many lack either of these qualities. When I speak of political crisis, I primarily mean this crisis.

9. How much you think, what you think about—that’s not what maturity means. Because you don’t really have much control over your thoughts. Maturity refers to the sense of knowing where and how much to speak, what to say, and how much to simply stay silent and slip away. Again, in certain situations, if you don’t know how to display deliberate immaturity—like remaining a little child forever in your parents’ eyes, appearing innocent before your beloved, playing somewhat foolish before teachers and bosses, getting so carried away playing with children that you forget your own age—then there’s no point in being mature at all.

10. If there’s a woman’s contribution behind a successful man, then one bitter truth is that behind a ruined man too, often the contribution belongs to that same woman. We know about successful people because they hold up their awards and speak of the woman behind their success. But we don’t keep track of failed people, so the “terrible contribution” of the woman behind them remains unknown to us. Successful people write the history of civilization, while failed people write the history of humanity.