Martyrdom Sans Death
There probably couldn’t be a worse time for anyone to start a blog. After the most recent attacks on India, our newspaper publications don’t know how to appropriately title the recent terror attacks in Mumbai. For the Americans it was nine-eleven (9/11), for the Brits it was seven-seven (7/7) – how can you get around titling a terror attack spread across three days? Unless, you STOP calling it a terrorist attack and call it what it is – WAR.
This blog post was never intended to discuss the events of the past week, but instead, I wanted to discuss the ideal path to greatness (or martyrdom) without going kaput. There is a reason to it… While it’s easy to reward those who died in the line of duty, I am always at a loss to understand as to why is it that all those other men (and women) in the line of duty not rewarded in a similar fashion. Is their service somehow less potent because of the lack of one unfortunate attribute – DEATH? While the ways of the world continue to puzzle me, there is a savvy way to achieve greatness without having to sacrifice one’s life. Just follow the simple three-step plan below:
1. Choose a VALUE proposition,
2. SACRIFICE all other options, and
3. Be CONSISTENT.
Whether it was Mahatma K Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. or Cyrus Broacha for that matter, they have all achieved greatness by following the above 3-step plan. Cross-referencing each step with each personality, we get the following analysis:
VALUE - MKG: Non-violence, NM: Anti-apartheid, MLK: Civil-rights, CB: Bakra-chap
SACRIFICE – They all sacrificed options to be an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor.
CONSISTENT – They have never wavered from their ideology and have never been ‘confused’.
The three-step plan isn’t limited to just individuals, but can be extended to organisations, groups or communes. In place of the personalities above, please feel free to insert, Apple, BMW, Mont Blanc etc. They are all great ‘brands’ and have achieved their greatness one step at a time. Martyrdom sans death.
