In his recent talk, Japanese zen buddhist Osho Taigu spoke about how we can become extraordinary. It was a response to a question someone posed. For the sake of simplicity, we could probably loosely define extraordinary as ‘successful’. You could also ask, how do you become successful?
Taigu gave a story. The story goes like this: Buddha had a clumsy disciple who wasn’t good at anything in particular. He was seen as somewhat dimwitted. He asked Buddha for guidance one day and Buddha gave him a broom. So this disciple started sweeping. He focused intently on sweeping, making sure everything was clean. He became really good at it until one day he reached enlightenment. No one could have thought that the single act of sweeping was the doorway to his enlightenment. That broom turned out to be the turning point from ordinary to extraordinary.
What is the lesson here? Becoming extraordinary doesn’t mean you need to do extraordinary things. It doesn’t mean we need to find lofty goals to prove our worth. All we really need to do is to do one thing well. It could be something as simple as sweeping or cleaning. Or something we can start easily. But the key is to do it with focus and commitment, with all our attention and energy. A simple act like cleaning certainly is a good starting point. Practice makes perfect.
Becoming extraordinary, or achieving success, is not as unattainable as it sounds. We can start small. The important thing is that we do with great focus and commitment. It’s not about doing something that sounds extraordinary but it’s about turning a simple act into something extraordinary.