Each of us has a biological inheritance that includes our external and internal makeup (black, white, tall, short, European, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, blood type, etc) that we cannot change. It is easy to feel trapped by that inheritance, limited by the biological traits that seem so important and beyond our abilities to change them.
However, do not make the mistake that your own genetics are trapping you in one slot, especially in realizing your intellectual potential. Biologists believe that none of us reaches more than a fraction of our intellectual potential we inherit. The limits of what we achieve in life stem less from our genes than from ourselves.
The biological capacities that we all inherit is enough to give each of us the tools to achieve great things in whatever we set out to do. When you think about the men and women who have pioneered scientific research, dreamed up inventions, written great literature or music, what do you see? Is this because of great genes or great efforts? The answer without a doubt is the latter.
What we inherit in the beginning of what we can be, it is not the end of it. With a little effort, you can achieve great things. There is grandeur in life, and the Gods have breathed powers into you. Life is beautiful and wonderful, go catch it, hold it, enjoy it, and put in that little extra effort to make your life a better one.
Be not dismayed that you are not a section chief, division director or executive director. Consider yourself as important as any one of them. Consider yourself an important part of the organization chain, without which the organization cannot function. What use is an airplane without its propellers or air propulsion mechanism or an automobile without its wheels? The sequence of activities and information flows that suppliers (you in UNICEF and UNICEF partners) must perform to design, deliver, and support projects that benefit women and children in the developing world is what creates value to that segment of society. Have you ever thought of UNICEF as a supplier? Yes, it is a global supplier of goods and services to the poorest clientele in the developing world. In this value chain process, you are an important part whatever your status is in the organization. I still remember how messy a big meeting was without a reception desk. Do you realize how much business a company can lose or gain from the tone of the receptionist?
I hope I bring you the message today how important you are and that your efforts are as valuable to your organization, society and your family and that your genetic makeup should not hold you back from realizing your dreams. Moreover, bigger dreams do not have to be higher social or official status and bigger wealth. What purpose does all that make if it does not lead to more happiness?
Organisms like members of a human community need to survive and acquire the necessities of life. But as people crowded into a city, organisms would have difficulty surviving if they all tried to do the same kinds of work, eat the same kinds of food and live in the same place. Is it not hard to imagine, for instance, an entire city of butchers and tailors? That is why you do one kind of job and another person does another kind of job.
In human cities, thousands of people survive near one another. They have different jobs, they shop in different stores, and they live in different places. Animals and plants do much the same thing. The combination of an organism’s “profession” and the place in which it lives is the “niche.” No two species can occupy the same niche in the same location for a long period. So be very proud of your “niche,” as your “niche” is a part of the value chain and success of the greater organization in which you serve and live (your family, your society, your place of work, et al).
If you think of the town in which you live, the doctors, electricians, teachers, nurses, etc, they all have a “niche” that is needed to serve that town. Each of their individual contributions makes that town a great success. Now if you translate this analogy into your workplace, you can see how your “niche,” your “individual contributions,” your profession, makes your workplace organization keep humming like a bee factory.
Having a “niche” does not mean you should be stuck in the mud with your current profession for the rest of your life. Therefore, if you have the will and desire, you can put in a little extra effort with schools of higher learning to breed into a new niche (profession), and enter new occupations through the evolutionary behaviors of adaptation and differentiation. Alternatively, you can adapt sideways by doing your job as best as you can or find smarter ways of doing your job. In other words being more effective in your job by the use of technology or simpler better ways of working or exploring teamwork, or trying to reduce on unnecessary rules and regulations, there are so many possibilities.
Now you can see how important you are. Put some zest in your life. Put in a little extra effort to make it better, to make things happen. Take the first step and you are already a success.
Sources/Reading: To write this essay I had to read relevant chapters from 'Biology' by Kenneth R. Miller, Ph.D and Joseph Levine, Ph.D. Publisher: Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 4th Ed, 1998.
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