Born to a lower-middle class professional family, I was brought up on the virtues of simple living, non-assertive behaviour and absolute integrity. From the anger shown by my father towards equipment vendors who brought Christmas hampers to our home in gratitude for tenders awarded to them at the Ceylon Electricity Board, to his refusal to drop us off in school or university on his way to office in his official vehicle, our family was inculcated with the values of integrity and of service to the nation.
The modesty and quiet confidence amidst which I was raised however also had the effect of making me less ambitious than most of my peers who seemed to have it all figured out about what they would end up to be and do. I on the contrary turned out to be a late developer – a very late one in fact.
One of my earliest recollections of personal skills, apart from that in the subject of mathematics, was that of identifying patterns and making connections. It would take me many years from then to realize the true potential of this skill – one that I’m eternally grateful to God for, the more I progress down the path of life.
Being an INFP[1] on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) scale, I have known the virtues of reflection from a very early age without realizing its potential for personal development. Being a late developer, I had little encouragement from other late developer role models, but instead admired the whiz kids who seemed to have it all figured out from a very early age.
It was in my first year in university that my rate of conscious personal development started accelerating, and by the end of my degree, I underwent some sort of a meta-morphosis from a mild, unassuming individual to a more persistent contributor to the society and environment around me. While many influences had their part to play in this awakening, the primary I believe was an unquenchable quest for the meaning of life and a commitment to living a life consistent to such meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment