From the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
One night, Army General Aureliano asked Colonel Gerineldo Marquez:
“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?”
“What other reason could there be, old friend?” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. “For the great Liberal Party.”
“You’re lucky you know,” he answered. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve only just realized that I am fighting out of pride.”
How many times has it happened with you that you took up a project or a challenge because you believed in a cause but ended up just fighting for your pride?
Be it a college election where you start out with a dream to improve faculty-student relations but you end up fighting with the focus that you don’t want to be a loser.
Or you may start a venture now because you believe that your idea can impact the world in a positive way but you end up dragging it along because you don’t want to accept defeat.
Or you may take up an assignment in your company because it will make your product better. But as you struggle with the inertia of other teams, you take it onto your pride to see the assignment through.
Examples are plenty, the net result is one. You start something because you believe in the cause and you just end up fighting out of your pride.
Why? Because as a leader, you struggle with several opposing forces. As an agent of change, you’ll face resistance, offense, and insult. People will come and praise you which will bloat your ego. People will also come and offend you which will hurt your ego. At times, you’ll try to move things and they’ll move, bloating your ego. And at other times, you’ll try to move things and they’ll not move, leaving you frustrated.
When things oscillate between appeasing your ego to hurting your ego, you develop a sense of higher self-esteem as well as a strong urge to protect it at all costs. Well, there you go. You started with the goal of making the world a better place and ended up with a self-centered life.
But fighting for your pride will not take you far. People will not support you. People don’t support leaders. People support a cause, a belief, a dream.
People didn’t support Mahatama Gandhi, they supported movement for independence; they supported method of non-violence. Imagine Gandhi fasting for several days not because he believed atrocities on the poor must be stopped; but because he was up against the district magistrate and wanted to teach him a lesson. Would he have got the support from people they way he did? No. People wouldn’t have even noticed him. Or would’ve laughed at him.
What made the difference for Gandhi? The fact that he was just fighting for the cause and not for his pride.
So, as a leader, stay focused on the cause. If you stop believing in it, just quit and walk away. There is no point in fighting for the pride. You’ll fail anyways…
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#1 by Shweta on February 3rd, 2009 - 8:15 pm
I kind of disagree with your last line, i.e., you will fail if you fight for your pride instead of fighting for your cause. Indeed, I would say that pride is generally a more stimulating motivation for a person to work hard towards the goal, than the cause. I agree that it can blind you from seeing that you are not achieving the cause in the process, or the cause isn’t worth it. But, that doubt you will have anyways, for any cause (in my opinion/experience). Your pride is what will make you sustain on it. And, sustenance is an important factor in success ultimately.
#2 by Prashant Singh on February 4th, 2009 - 9:20 am
Nice Post . My grandfather used to tell me one thing “Your Work is bigger than You , so Don’t be too full of your self ever. Learn from every one ,Learn from Every Opportunity, Learn from Everything which touches you in course of your work”
when it comes to pride . it has it’s role too . people often confuse pride for self believe. as long as logical premise of your project is sound i think it doesn’t matter if you draw your motivation from pride or purpose. its like fuel . Diesel or petrol . you will still reach the same place.
and just an observation I guess people supported Mahatma Gandhi.most of his follower didn’t really understood the whole Ahimsa thing .Events of “Chorri Choura” are proof of that . neither did his colleague understood the pride . Indo-Pak Partisan is a proof of that .
#3 by Manas on February 4th, 2009 - 9:46 am
@Shweta - I think the amount of stimulation depends on the amount of belief you have. Whether the belief is in cause or in yourself. There are people who choose to die on war front for both the reasons (i.e. those who believe in their bravery and those who believe in patriotism).
So, the amount of effort that you as an individual put in depends on the belief and is independent of pride/cause. However, any sizeable work requires multiple people to work in unison as a single force. And that can happen only if people work for a single cause. In your day-to-day job, if your manager asks you to do something because it would benefit the customer, you’ll do it very willingly. However, if he asks you to do it because it would make him rich and famous, you wouldn’t put your 100%. That’s where the difference in cause and pride comes.
@Prashant - I think it’s important where the motivation comes from. In due course of time, you’ll face situations where you’ll have to make a choice between the cause and pride. And when you choose pride, people around you will notice and you’ll start losing the support.
#4 by hariom sharma on February 4th, 2009 - 2:50 pm
Manas I agree with the idea. There have also been number of instances when one started with fight for a cause which converted to fight for self-pride and otherwise as well.
The movie “The candidate” describes the plight in former and “Guide” in Hindi kind of describes the latter.
However, in some case, fight for one’s own dignity can also be a cause.