JOIN USEnthusiasm is to our spirit what gasoline is to any automobile. Just as no vehicle can run without fuel, every human effort will stall if it is not packed with enthusiasm.
The word itself comes from the Greek words ‘theos’ meaning God and ‘en’ meaning in, indicating that those filled with enthusiasm have ‘God in’ them. No one can therefore be ‘in God’ and not have enthusiasm ‘in them’.
Enthusiasm is that part of our inner-self that pushes, motivates and drives us to live up to our highest potential from day to day.
The daily grind, the monotony of work, the drudgery of a livelihood, the stubbornness of everyday duties and the mundane routine of daily living can all be made to seem uplifting and enjoyable by this wonderful quality of enthusiasm.
“A man can succeed in almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm,” said Charles M Schwab, a successful American industrialist of the nineteenth century. It is with enthusiasm that men scale new heights, learn new skills, adapt to changing environments and do the impossible at ease. M F Husain, India’s most iconic artist, painted right up until two weeks before his death at the age of 95 years. George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist, literary critic and play writer, was still writing at 94 years.
Arthur Rubinstein, the well-known Polish-American classical pianist, gave a great recital at 89 years. Winston Churchill, one of Britain’s most loved prime minister wrote “A history of the English-speaking peoples” at 82 years.
The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, at 77 years, led a whole nation of the Indian subcontinent to freedom from foreign rule and oppression. Besides their ripe age, the common thread that ran through the fabric of these great personalities was their unlimited enthusiasm.
Inventor Thomas Edison was once asked, “When will you retire?” to which he enthusiastically replied, “The day before my funeral!” It is undeniably enthusiasm that gives an unrelenting zeal at work, the untiring spirit for labour, passion for excellence to any endeavour and a never-say-die attitude to any commitment. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so rightly said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
The moot question is, “How do we cultivate enthusiasm?” The primary way to develop enthusiasm is to become outgoing and self-giving. Giving ourselves in service and goodwill has a magnetic effect of attracting enthusiasm onto us. Another easy way of generating enthusiasm within ourselves is simply to act enthusiastic all the time.
For, great thinkers believe that ‘we become as we act.’ The ‘act-as-if’ principle will soon transform us into enthusiastic people. The enthusiasm so unearthed can then, through conscious effort, be made into a life-long and rewarding habit.