I’m no role model
It isn’t easy to write on a person who you are living with… or call him or her your role-model. This is because you are then stepping on the intimacy patterns of that relationship. But I finally did decide to communicate through a short video. The text that you see below, is what the narrator, that is me, speaks aloud.
A role model is someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them. Well, the truth is that role models are always ready to learn from their experiences… so learning is at the very foundation. Now learning isn’t what you get from books. It is that indescribable thing that you see, admire, and yearn to follow… and it just may be the way a person walks.
Yes, just bring your eyes down and watch how people walk. You’ll love some of the walks you see… and some will just fade away from your memory. Some will stay and help you walk through life confidently and with a sense of doing everything correctly. This is the walk of a Commonwealth scholar who astounded her mentors at the University of York in UK. This is the walk of a teacher of mathematics who doesn’t just teach, but makes her students fall in love with numbers and all that they can do.
Here is the walk that inspires me to get up and go for my walks… a walk that makes me go up and down and jump around just to make sure that I remain fit.
So yes, walking through life confidently is vital. But so is the way you carry your bag. Or turn around. Or stop and wait to watch a glorious sunset or a sunrise. I stop when she stops. I wait when she waits. I watch when she watches. And each time, I end up learning something new.
But this isn’t all that a role-model really does. A role-model doesn’t teach consciously… a real role-model is always ready to learn. Look at the mathematician who is learning to find her way through the complexities of blogging. Now she goes tippity-tip over her key-board and blogs about things that she wouldn’t have a few years back. This person is ready to explore the new-age attraction of a great online presence through the social media and blogging. I am always closely watching her struggle and then pick up acceleration and zip into a new world with a lot of expressive poise. And for me is yet one more learning from my role model.
The books that she decides to read… the focus on the written word… her comfort at understanding complex thoughts… and her readiness to talk and discuss everything from the latest in politics to what is new on starsports dot com is what takes her a couple of steps ahead of everyone else I have met and admired.
Her comfort with technology… and her eagerness to move fast and test the latest in the world of gadgets and devices is what teaches me never to let the unexpected advancements in science shock me into silence. This is important… because we really need to adopt technology lest we allow it to cower in submission.
So I’m not surprised to admit and announce that it is Specky, my wife who is my role model. The world knows her as Dr Sangita Passey.
The only words that she speaks in the video, are:
‘I am no role model. I am just trying to learn all that is new… and change with the changing times.’
So you see… role models will never admit that they are role models.
The video is shot as a part of the My Role Model Activity by Gillette India in association with Blogadda.
I am writing about #MyRoleModel as a part of the activity by Gillette India in association with BlogAdda.com.
#MyRoleModel
Arvind Passey
10 May 2014
