On the path of life, we meet people who decide to change their lives and not just do their roles and achieve their hopes of personal success, but also cross their limits and influence those around them managing to draw their path of life with its curves keeping its traces before their eyes whether they are easy or hard. Many people live and die without leaving an impact and a little live among us, yet after their departure, they keep living in our minds and hearts thanks to the meaning they add to our life. If it is important to live, it is more important to know how to live. I will introduce to you two samples: the first is Dr. Rick Rigsby; a writer and a lecturer who won many awards and the second is a teacher to whom teaching was not a job, but a life.
Rick was speaking at one of the lectures on the influence of man in the life of others; providing an example of the wisest man he met; a man who was a third-grade dropout, but he taught him a lot of life lessons, as he says, “He taught me to combine knowledge and wisdom”. He is his father, the simple cook who gave up his school to help in his family’s farm. However, he did not give up learning as he taught himself reading and writing; and at the darkest moments, he decided to be a man: “He literary challenged himself to be the best he could be on all the days of his life”
His father’s lessons were his map in life till he managed to get four degrees and his brother became a Judge. He offered some of them. First: to be always early, “Son, you would rather be an hour early than a minute late” These were just words, but a real life as for thirty years, his father left home everyday so early at 4 O’clock in the morning. Excellence is not doing something once, not even many times; excellence is a habit; it is what you are used to doing every morning. Aristotle says, “You are what you repeatedly do”. Commitment to what we do daily is a life style and a path that should be taken. Kind feelings toward others and attempting to help them are the trace of the true path of humanity that remains in people’s minds and when you depart, your memory would remain in everybody’s mind. Another lesson he was taught was to be a servant and overcome his ego. “Make sure your servant’s towel is bigger than your ego” as the path of modest serving and toiling for others will let you attract people with love and service. Fourth: to do his job right: “if you are going to do a job, do it right” Here Rick is commenting, “Good enough is not good enough if it can’t be better and better is not good enough if it can be best”. At last, “Take a break for a minute then keep going”. It is the lesson of hardships that no matter how powerful the wind blows trying to take you down; you have to stand still and keep being strong no matter how tough your hardship is. To be continued….
General Bishop
Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
