Empower Yourself

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it. He did. He watched the caterpillar grow and get into a cocoon for the last stage of its development. One day a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly slowly started to emerge. At first the boy was excited, but soon became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out. It looked desperate. It looked like it was making no progress. The boy was so worried and decided to help. He got a pair of scissors and snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged. The boy was surprised to find that the butterfly had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He hoped that the body would shrink and the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand. But neither happened. The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with the swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.  

Why did the butterfly end up with a deformed body? Why was the butterfly not able fly? In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. The struggle is nature’s way of making the butterfly strong enough to fly. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly.

You, my dear friends do not need someone to cut open your cocoons to come out. You can and should do it yourself. All you need is the right conditions to be able to do so. That is going to be the theme of my article today.

The dictionary definition of ‘empower’ is to give someone authority or power to do something. It is not doing it for them, but giving the knowledge, skills, confidence and courage to enable them to do it themselves. Just like the butterfly, we need challenges to realize how strong we are. We need obstacles to realize how badly we want to travel the path. And we need problems to realize how capable we are.

In 1990 I won the award for the best results in advanced level bio stream at my scool, Nalanda College. That was the culmination of a very successful school life for me. There were many individuals who empowered me to be the best, who were the wind beneath my wings. My parents, my teachers and many others who wanted nothing but the best for me were there to be that beacon of light in a dark stormy night. None more inspirational than my grade 3 teacher, Mrs. Samarasingle.

When she wrote this in my report card, way back in 1980, it not only inspired me to be the best, but also put me under a lot of pressure due to the expectation she had created. That pushed me to raise the bar and place my standards rather high, not only for me, but also for everyone around me. Of course, my children are no exception.

Few years back, when Kavishka, my eldest son, brought the report after the first mid-term test of grade 11, I nearly had a heart attack. Yes, he has not been top of the class material, but he hardly ever brings even Cs, not to mention a D. 34 marks for mathematics with only 10 months for the first real test of his brains. How could this happen? I had my reputation on the line and the legacy of a brainy family under fire. The lowest I had ever got for math was 94 and only on three occasions had I missed the perfect 100. And on top of that, my mother was an excellent math teacher. I simply could not let things drift.

I had to resort to some drastic measures!

Of course it was not what happened, even though I was tempted, to be honest. It would have been the easier option as well. But I took the road less traveled, the difficult road not taken by many parents. Rather than accepting the responsibility for his results, I set out a plan to get him to accept the responsibility himself. Of course, he needed help. I spent a lot of time planning the future actions. I sent him to the grandparents’ for two weeks during April holidays. And above all I placed unwavering trust on him, so that he could trust his own abilities.

During second term he bounced back with a 90 and 79 for the subject and I could breathe a sigh of relief. But for the mock exam, with less than a month to go for the exam, again he had missed the A for math. And in fact had only two As altogether. I had another opportunity to panic and take matters into my own hands and tell him what to do. But, I resisted the temptation and put the ball back in his court. All I did was empowering him, to believe in his own abilities and to find a way for him to make maximum use of those abilities.

And at the exam, he produced this.

Those were two real life examples of how empowerment works and how it can create unbelievable results. An article on how to empower children would benefit you if you are a parent or a teacher. But, an article on empowering yourself would benefit all of you and that is exactly what I intend to do with my upcoming articles.

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay happy!