The Countdown to Success: 55 words of inspiration:

As an academic of almost 55 years, I have often been told that we are inclined to take almost an hour to make a point, and our background building itself takes more time than the span of attention of the young. 

In this VUCA ( volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world) living in an age of brevity of instant messaging with WhatsApp, I began to reflect upon what age old wisdom I could share with the youth of today,perhaps as Tweets.

So I created a countdown beginning with an inspirational message in 10 words, then one in 9 words and so on in decreasing order, till finally I was down to one word.

And amazingly, the one word Philosophy of ‘ Excel’ or a two word mission of ‘ Just Shine’, which is the sole purpose of the sun, while it burns fiercely inside are just amazing. The opposite of excellence is mediocrity, which should be avoided and the purpose of all motivational and inspirational messages is to help us transcend mediocrity and achieve our full potential. 

Here it is:

{10}: An inspirational thought in 10 words “Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached “: Swami Vivekanand

{9}: Get inspired in 9 words ” Let noble thoughts come to us from all directions”: Rigveda

{8}: Get motivated by 8 words : ” The harder I work, the luckier I get” : Thomas Jefferson

{7}: Stay away from financial crises with 7 words : “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” : William Shakespeare

{6}: Your real freedom in 6 simple words : ” No one can imprison my mind”: Mahatma Gandhi

{5}: Guide your life with 5 words: ” Be a lamp unto yourself ” Gautam Buddha

{4}: Being responsible in 4 words : ” God does not play dice” : Albert Einstein

{3}: Going Solo in 3 words” Ekla Chalo Re”: Rabindra Nath Tagore

{2}: A life’s mission in just 2 words: ”Just Shine”…. like the Sun

{1}: The one word world view : “Excel”: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore, is not an act but a habit: Aristotle

I posted this on my blog, more than 5 years ago, on August 19th, 2015. Here is the link : https://mmpant.com/2015/08/19/the-countdown-to-success-in-55-inspirational-words/

I used them in closing a TEDx talk that I did again around 4 years back. Here is the link https://youtu.be/Ve0roK3wVgI. My 55 words of inspiration are at 18 minutes, towards the end of the talk.

And more recently, during the lockdown it was again included towards the closing of an interview, at 41 minutes, to which the link is here: https://youtu.be/3DPWEfpmMmk

Many of you will recognise 55 as the sum of the first 10 natural numbers. Some of you may even remember the formula n(n+1)/2 as the formula for the sum of the first ‘n’ natural numbers. 

There is a well-known story of the Mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. When Gauss was still at primary school, one day Gauss’ teacher wrote the numbers from 1 to 100 on the blackboard and asked the class to add together all the numbers from 1 to 100, assuming that this task would keep the class occupied for quite a while, so that in the meantime he could catch up on some other work that he had to do.  But Gauss amazed his teacher by coming up  after a few seconds, with the answer as 5050. When asked to explain how he could do this adding of 100 numbers so quickly, Gauss explained that there were fifty pairs of numbers when he added the first and last number in the series, the second and second-last number in the series, and so on. For example: (1 + 100), (2 + 99), (3 + 98), . . . , and each such pair has a sum of 101. And then he multiplied 101 by 50. 

For the purpose of this post, I tried to create some alternative sets in the same pattern. 

Here is the 2nd set:

10 words : Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future: Oscar Wilde

9   words: Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition: Steve Jobs 

8  words: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong : Murphy’s Law

7  words: Success is where preparation and opportunity meet: Bobby Unser

6  words: A stitch in time saves nine: a well known proverb whose origins are not known

5  words: I think, therefore I am : Rene deCartes

4  words: I have a dream : Martin Luther King

3  words: Clarity preceded success: Robin Sharma

2  words: Power corrupts : Francis Bacon 

1   word: Gratitude :It is not just a word, it is a way of life: Rob Martin

I am sure that many members of this group will be able to suggest several other alternatives to these set of inspirational and motivational phrases. Please do share them in this group. Even if you are not able to contribute a full set of 55 words, even if you suggest a partial set, it would be appreciated. This will be a step towards making this a more active learning community. 

Here is yet another set : the 3rd set 

# 10 words :  I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious: Albert Einstein

#9   words: We build too many walls and not enough bridges: Isaac Newton

#8  words: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: Winston Churchill

#7  words: Commitment is an act, not a word: Jean-Paul Sartre

#6  words: We must cultivate our own garden: Voltaire 

#5  words: Creativity is just connecting things: Steve Jobs

#4  words: You ought to dream : Ernest Hemingway

#3  words: Knowledge is Power: Francis Bacon

#2  words:  Hasten slowly : Augustus

#1   word: Dream : I have a dream : Martin Luther King Jr

And finally a 4th set: 

10 words: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do: Jesus Christ 

  9 words: No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking: Voltaire

  8 words: Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change: Stephen Hawking

   7 words: The unexamined life is not worth living : Socrates

   6 words: Work expands to fill the time: Parkinson’s Law

   5 words: You cannot predict the future: Stephen Hawking

   4 words: Stay hungry. Stay foolish: Steve Jobs

   3 words: Genius is patience : Isaac Newton 

   2 words: Look within : Marcus Aurelius 

   1 word: Imagine: Imagination is more important than Knowledge : Albert Einstein

By combining these inspirational sentences from different sets, one can create several combinations of 55 words of inspiration. If we just had the first 2 sets, then we had 2 choices for each of the 10 sentences. This gives rise to 2x2x2x2x 2x2x2x2x2x2=1024 possibilities. With 3 sets it gives rise to 59049 possibilities. With the 4 sets that we have, we could have 1048576 possibilities for the 55 words of inspiration. If we prepare 10 sets of these, the possibilities would become 10000000000. Just one more example of how complexity can arise out of simplicity. 

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