Courage and Conviction

by V.K. Singh

Don’t think of the future—where you will go, what you will become—just stay focused on today and do the work that has been given to you to the best of your ability. No one has seen the future, and all you will succeed in doing is ruining your today if you follow that path.

There is a universal rule that applies not just to the Indian Army but to all organizations across the globe—don’t rub your boss the wrong way.

Maintaining the country’s fighting forces is akin to paying one’s insurance premium, and a better policy demands a higher price.

‘Nobody has seen tomorrow, so just concentrate on your today. Do your work with sincerity, you will be recognized. You don’t have to do anything silly to jump over the heads of your colleagues and your peers.’

Have your checks and balances by all means, but for god’s sake we need to stop the tamasha.

But are mere words enough to serve any purpose? Here I seek assurance from the famous clarion call of the Russian rebel writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: ‘It is infinitely difficult to begin when mere words must move a great block of matter. But there is no other way if none of the material strength is on your side. And a shout in the mountains has been known to cause an avalanche.’

The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his conscience is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of Honour.