Each new year, the first paper assigned to Biodesign students was simply titled, “Who am I.?â€Â I stated, “In order to know the difference between you and me, I need to know a lot about you and a lot about me.†The only guidelines offered were to be as honest and sincere as possible. One of my female students beautifully and profoundly answered the question and included a Nelson Mandela essay as a model for what she hoped to become.
John Muir was treated cruelly by his fanatical, Scottish Presbyterian father. Daniel Muir must have believed, “spare the rod and spoil the child,†and, “pride goeth before a fall.†Miraculously, Yosemite healed John’s emotional scars and greatly contributed to his ascendancy of becoming a beacon of light to guide millions of pilgrims on a spiritual quest.
Nelson Mandela had his own hell to survive. He was condemned to 27 years in prison for courageously confronting the cruelty of racial injustice. Out of this crucible, however, he too became a beacon of light and wrote one of the most brilliant essays on human spirituality.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.â€