WELCOME ADDRESS: FRESHERS' DAY

Fr. Emmanuel Kallarackal, CSC, Ph.D. (Principal)

AIM HIGH.BELIEVE YOU CAN:

Be an Eagle :

A man found an eagle's egg and placed it under a brooding hen. The eaglet hatched with the chickens and grew to be like them. He clucked and cackled; scratched the earth for worms; flapped his wings and managed to fly a few feet in the air.

Years passed. One day, the eagle, now grown old, saw a magnificent bird above him in the sky. It glided in graceful majesty against the powerful wind, with scarcely a movement of its golden wings.

Spellbound, the eagle asked, "Who's that?" "That's the king of the birds, the eagle," said his neighbor, the chicken. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to earth - we are chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that is what he thought he was. Henry David Thoreau said, "What a man thinks of himself; that is what determines, or rather indicates his fate." Dear students, do you realize you are eagles and not chickens, Majestic Eagles who are called to soar high in the sky?

Aim High : The motto of the College for this year is: AIM high.Believe you CAN ". You have heard this quote, " R each for the stars. For when you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either " . I invite you dear students and members of the faculty to aim high. Well defined goals give a person a sense of direction, a feeling of accomplishment when he reaches his goals. More important than goals is a sense of purpose and vision. They give meaning and fulfillment to life.

In goal setting, we need to be realistic too. Unrealistic goals and un attempted goals remain unaccomplished, leading to poor self-esteem, whereas realistic goals are encouraging and build high self-esteem. Self esteem is the way we feel about ourselves. When we feel good within, our performance goes up because there is a direct correlation between our feelings and behavior. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad IV , 4.5 reads, " You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny ." If you keep thinking and believing that you are a chicken, you will always remain a chicken. If you believe you are an eagle, you will be one. I am inviting you today to believe that you are an eagle so that you can fly high in the sky of life.

Our thoughts are causes : You may have heard the following quote: " You sow a thought, you reap an action. You sow an action, you reap a habit. You sow a habit, you reap a character. You sow a character, you reap a destiny. It all starts with a thought."

Think Constructively : According to Dr. Seymour Epstein, " Super achievers don't waste time in unproductive thoughts, esoteric thoughts, or catastrophic thoughts. They think constructively and they know that their level of thinking determines their success ." You need to keep your mind on what you want, not on what you don't want. Visualize what you want to be in life and reach there in your imagination, so that your mind can reach there before your body, which may be after many years. Success is not an accident. It is the result of your attitude and belief. Your attitude is a choice. Hence, success is a matter of choice and not chance.

Motivation is the driving force in our lives. It comes from a desire to succeed. Without success there is little pride in life; no enjoyment or excitement at work and at home. Life becomes like a lopsided wheel giving a bumpy ride. The greatest enemy of motivation is complacency. Complacency leads to lack of effort, and when people are complacent they don't grow because they cannot identify what is needed in their lives. Positive believing is more than positive thinking. It is knowing that positive thinking will work. Positive believing is an attitude of confidence that comes from preparation. Having positive attitude without making the effort is nothing more than having a wishful dream. Albert Einstein said, "I think I used about 25% of my intellectual capacity during my life". According to William James, human beings use only 10-12 % of their potential. Believe in your potentials and abilities. Believe You CAN and work hard towards achieving your dream and you WILL succeed one day.

Positive Self-Talk: Develop the habit of giving yourself positive self-talk. Auto suggestions alter your belief system by influencing your subconscious mind. Your behavior reflects your belief system. Hence, auto-suggestions affect your behavior by influencing your belief system. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy: Tell yourself, " I am an excellent student, I am a disciplined and hardworking person, I can handle it, I can do it, I am good at English, I have a good memory etc."

Inner Motivation: You may have heard the story of the balloon seller, who made his living by selling balloons at a fair. He had balloons of many different colours, including red, yellow, blue and green. Whenever business was slow, he would release a helium-filled balloon into the air. When the children saw the balloon go up, they all wanted one. They would come up to him, buy a balloon and his sales would go up. All day, he continued to release a balloon whenever the sales slowed down. One day, the balloon man felt some one tugging at his jacket. He turned around and a little boy asked, "If you release a black balloon, would that also fly?" Moved by the boy's concern, the man replied gently, "Son, it is not the colour of the balloon; it is what's inside that makes it go up".

William James of Harvard University said, " The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind ". What is your attitude? What is your belief system? Are you a positive thinker? What is inside you? Do you believe in yourself? Do you have a positive self-esteem? Are you an optimistic person?

Christian D. Larsen, wrote the Creed for Optimists as follows:

" Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel that you appreciate their good qualities and strengths. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your won. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger ."

Be Responsibile: Winston Churchill wrote as follows: ' The price of greatness is responsibility" . I invite you dear students and faculty to take responsibility for your life and studies at Holy Cross College from day one, i.e: today. Be punctual and regular to the classes, get the maximum benefit from our teachers and be up to date with your lessons. You should be willing to take the credit for your success as well as blame for your failures. Be responsible and self-disciplined and success will follow you always. Our College offers award for punctuality and attendance. Make an earnest attempt to be recipient of this award this year.

Love what you do : St. Francis of Assisi wrote, " Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible ." If we learn to love and like the task, the impossible becomes possible. Love your books, love the subjects of your choice for study, love your teachers, love your authorities, love the library and lab and love your College. Much is accomplished by genuine love and a passion for living life to its fullness.

Obstacles in Following Your Dream:

Paulo Coeho's in his classic book, " Alchemist" writes about four obstacles in following our dreams: The fear of impossibility, fear of love, fear of defeat and the fear of realizing the dream. I just want to focus on two of these fears, namely the fear of impossibility and the fear of defeat .

The fear of impossibility is one of the major obstacles to achieve your dream. We are told from childhood onwards that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. Please know that just by our own efforts many things are impossible. But with the support of God, authorities, peers and teachers many things we consider as impossible are possible for us. Aim high.believe you can and move on ahead with this sense of optimism and courage, with an attitude of co-operation with all those who are willing to assist you on your journey towards excellence and success.

The fear of defeat is another obstacle in achieving your dream. We are afraid of the defeats we will meet on the path. We must be prepared to have patience in difficult times. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times. It is important to live our personal calling. Once we overcome the defeats, we are filled with a greater sense of confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. Hence dear students, Believe you can .never be afraid of defeat and failure. We are all familiar with the old saying, "failure is a stepping stone to success. A person, who never tries, never succeeds and never makes a mistake. A person who never makes mistakes never learn. So, even if you make mistakes, try.try.try and try fearlessly. It is only when you try; you can truly succeed in life.

Keep your dreams alive . Work every day with dogged determination to achieve your dreams. Your dreams will make your studies and activities of the College passionate and your dreams will give meaning to your hard work and studies. If you believe yourself worthy of your dream and understand why you are here in this world, there will be great happiness in living out your dreams. All the difficulties, struggles and pains will be transformed into joy once you attain the goal of your life. Find time to listen to your inner calling and find beauty and peace in nature as you strive to go beyond power and fear. There is a life full of surprises in following your dreams. I wish you courage, interest, enthusiasm, passion and meaningfulness in your attempts to follow your dreams.

The value of struggle: A biology teacher was teaching his students how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. He told the students that in the next couple of hours, the butterfly would struggle to come out of the cocoon, but no one should help the butterfly. Then he left. The students were waiting and it happened. The butterfly struggled to get out of the cocoon and against the advice of the teacher; one of the students took pity on it and decided to help the butterfly out of the cocoon. He broke the cocoon to help the butterfly so it did not have to struggle any more. But shortly afterwards, the butterfly died. When the teacher returned, he was told what had happened. He explained to the student that it is a law of nature that the struggle to come out of the cocoon actually helps develop the strength the butterfly's wings. By helping the butterfly, the boy had deprived the butterfly of its struggle and the butterfly died.

Apply the same principle to our lives. Nothing worthwhile in life comes without a struggle. If you struggle and learn by yourself following the directions given by the teaching faculty of our College, without depending on private tuitors', your sense of self-reliance and self -esteem will grow and you will be able to fly high because you would have then developed strong wings to fly high through your personal struggles in achieving good results at the college.

May God bless all your efforts during this academic year and the years ahead? Welcome to Holy Cross College and may God be with you always to inspire you, protect you and guide you through life. Make the best of the opportunities given to you and be grateful to God for whatever blessings you receive every day, day after day. Thank you and God bless you.