ONE MAN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
By: Muhammad Abdullah
Tags: Edhi, Pakistan, One Man Army

ONE MAN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

“One man can change the world” by Big Sean is one of my favourite songs that has hit my playlist countless times, but I never realized the power behind it’s chorus (one man can change the world) until I came across a book named “A mirror to the Blind” an official biography of Abdul Sattar Edhi by Tehmina Durrani, a renowned writer and activist in Pakistan. Edhi’s name needs no introduction, in fact, the whole world knows him as a saint, philanthropist, and an activist who took to social injustice, welfare in a heavenly way.

Edhi’s life is a glaring example of how small beginnings lead to greater achievements. From donating a paisa a day to single-handedly establishing one of the world’s greatest welfare organizations, from leaving the school in grade four to reading the greats like Lenin and Carl Marx to becoming a great intellectual himself, from a little lad nicknamed ‘Roti’ helping a wounded old citizen, to over 6000 volunteers working to provide 24 hours emergency services, from collecting donations for a second hand vehicle for ambulance service, to building world’s largest ambulance service comprising over 1800 ambulances stationed across Pakistan, he showed the world how humble beginnings lead us to great achievements.

He wasn’t the son of a billionaire, but had a heart worth trillions. He didn’t wait to be rich to help the poor, rather started from whatever he got as his pocket money. The list of his achievements as a humanitarian and a philanthropist would take pages to cover, but his personal life was way simple than most of us. Just owned two pairs of clothes, never owned a house, never drove a vehicle other than ambulance and had the same pair of shoes for the last twenty years of his life. Yet he did wonders for the mankind. He truly lived up to his admireable titles “Father Teresa of Pakistan” and “The richest poor man”.

Just start Project:

I was in grade 3 when I started reading books, newspapers and columns. My mom would bring me short stories, books, children’s magazines from her school library. By the time I reached high school, I realized that I had a knack for writing. Whenever, I’d read a beautifully crafted piece of writing, or watch an ill-scripted tv commercial, than are abundant in our advertisement industry, I’d tell myself that this is where I belong, I’ve got what it takes to be a writer who can impact the world with his pen. I used to think about writing, learn about writing and then ‘procrastination’ would take over me and as it’s result I never happened to actually complete a writing project. Yes, I’m an introvert with a procrastination complex who used to think maybe I’m not ready yet, or maybe I need to learn and work on stylistics, syntax and lexicon, to get into the competitive world of content writing. ‘Khudi’ wasn’t ‘buland’ enough, and I had a severe lack of ‘Amal’.

This January, the most beautiful thing of my educational life happened when I joined Amal academy for a career prep course in order to expand my skill arsenal. In the very beginning I learnt about the core principles of success and had a chance to read about the story of world renowned philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi(late) to understand how he used these principles of Amal, Khudi and self learning to build one of the greatest welfare organizations in the world. What I learnt from his story is that humble beginnings lead to the greatest achievements is you persist and stick to the goldens rules of ‘amal, Khudi and Self learning. And that’s what I’ve just started NOW. I’ll be writing, writing and writing that unfinished novel that I started and quit in the high school, those rap lyrics that I craft and forget, the articles and blogs about the things I’ve loved and wanted others to know about. I’ll sit down to pen, pad and keyboard, and I’ll bleed everyday. And by writing this blog, I have JUST STARTED.

Setting goals:

Incorporating the golden rules of Amal, Khudi and self learning to excel in the field of writing.

Start writing with the immediate effect, without any further delay of waiting for the right time and skills to come.

Working on developing writing skills along with writing. What I learnt here at amal that I can’t improve skills without actually putting myself into Amal to face the challenges and learn from experience.

Khudi and Self learning:

I feel extremely fortunate and thankful that I got a wonderful opportunity to start writing about my passion- that is writing itself. To put is simply, I have to write a blog about how I wanted to write blogs, articles and different stuff.

In my first two sessions, I had an opportunity to deeply observe biography of a boy, who had to quit school in grade four, and later he turned out to be the world’s greatest humanitarian, philanthropist and intelectual. You surely have guessed who I am talking about- none other than Abdul Sattar Edhi. With no proper education, he still managed to touch the skies of excellence just because of his passions. From reading newspapers, magazines, writers like Karl Marx, Lenin any many others, to learning through what he was going through everyday, selling pencils to doing different jobs and volunteering himself for social welfare, he proved that If you are determined to your Khudi, no one can stop you from learning and leaning towards excellence. To put it in Edhi’s own words,

“Education can be extracted from all things- No man is excluded from this divine source”