You might also like...

Showing posts with label courage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label courage. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Limitless




मैं कहाँ रुकता हूँ अर्श-ओ-फर्श की आवाज़ से,
मुझको जाना है बहुत ऊंचा, हद-ए-परवाज़ से 

So I was looking out the window at the cold, wet weather and thinking if I want to walk to office carrying that heavy bag or take the car. I am going to London in the evening and will take a cab directly from the office so taking the car will be a nuisance, I will have to come home to drop the car first. But the bag contains my tripod, camera etc. and is slightly heavy. Then I remembered that the last time we held auditions in London, last week, I had walked to the office with the same bag, and the weather was was similar. Okay, walk it is.

I thought how funny it is that just the realization that I have done something before makes it easier, even though physically nothing has changed!

In athletics there was a limit that a distance of one mile could not be run in less than 4 minutes. But one man, Roger Bannister, just refused to accept it. He kept trying and trying until in 1954 he accomplished the supposedly impossible milestone of four-minute-mile.

In a year from his first achievement, almost 10 runners all over the world had achieved the same thing. What changed? The road was the same, their bodies were the same, and yet they performed better, why? Only one thing changed. The limit in their mind disappeared. They now knew it could be done!

It is true not just in running but in any area of life. When you come across the next "impossible" task, look at it closely, is the limit real? Or is it just in your mind?

Happy flying! :)

(The sher translates to - I don't let the voices of the Earth and the Sky stop me. My goal is to reach much higher than the limit of the flight.)

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Power of One!

Never say you couldn't achieve anything because noone was there to support you. Did you dare to start?



It reminds me of this sher from Allama Iqbal -
"Main akela hee chala tha jaanib-e-manzil magar,
Log saath aate gaye, kaarvaaN ban.ta gayaa".

(I had started alone towards the destination,
People kept falling in step with me and procession was thus built.)

(Originally seen here - http://sagargoswami007.blogspot.com/2008/09/great.html)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Thought of the day - 17th June 2008

"Anything can be achieved in small, deliberate steps. But there are times you need the courage to take a great leap; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."


I have used it before in another form, but this is one of my very favorite thoughts.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Eating an elephant!


Question: How do you eat an elephant?
Answer: One spoon at a time!

No, no, that's not my way of saying that I have turned non-vegetarian. I am still quite strictly vegetarian other than having an occasional omelette, but I found this English expression quite funny and very apt for what I am about to tell you.

I suddenly got it into my head that I want to be a pilot!

When I took my first, very first, plane journey to US from India, I was quite excited! I loved the feeling of taking off, being airborne and even landing. It was a good landing. But since then I have lost count of my plane journies (nothing phenomenal there, most people do after 6), and during all these air voyages I have had some unpleasant experiences. No, nothing too bad, nothing extraordinary that would get in the newspapers, just simple stuff like weather turbulence where the plane drops for 10-20 seconds at a time straight down and you start looking for something to plug into your mouth (like a shoe) just so you can keep the heart down ; or the landing where the pilot brakes hard immediately after the rear wheels touch down like he's riding a bicycle. Stuff like that has made me kind of...well, not afraid of flying but kind of apprehensive, even during takeoffs and landings, normal ones.
So acting on the age-old wisdom of "face your fears" I thought I'd go for some flying training. Which is kind of weird coming from me as I don't even like roller coasters. That heart-in-your-throat feeling is not very good! Other than that though, flying training in England, (I am sure, everywhere), is quite expensive. I can't afford it! It'd be a huge project for me to take up. The best idea for a huge project, if possible, is to take it in small steps - so I am starting my training from the computer. There are several programs available that simulate the flying experience, some of them free like FlightGear, most of them paid like Microsoft Flight Simulator, arguably the most popular of them all. It's marketed as a game but it is in fact so accurate in its simulation that people do, all over the world, use it as a training aid, before, during or after their real flying training.
Then there are books available for real as well as simulated training which help you understand the concepts and acquire the related knowlege. And believe me there's an enormous amount of knowledge to acquire, it's not just holding the stick (the control column) and moving it back and forth!
During my research on the topic (you are right, it started from www.google.co.uk) , I found this community or rather communities of people who fly a plane on the computer and then online, using software programs to interface with other pilots and even real, live ATCs! I was amazed! Look at www.vatsim.net if you are interested! So, that's the next step of my training ladder. Then there are other things to do, until, step by step I build up my skills on the ground and hopefully also my fund for my real training.

That's why I call it by the funny title, breaking a huge task into very small, minute, doable parts and then tackling them one by one. That's how you eat an elephant....one spoon at a time!
Edit: Thought I'd put a picture there to spice things up. It's a beautiful picture and courtesy of fellow VATSIM pilot Jordan Jafferjee.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Thought of the day - 7th April 2008

“More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin.”  - Unknown