Primary Greatness - Rudranshi Rai

Primary greatness is who you really are: your character, integrity, deepest motives, and desires. It is made in our life. Greatness can also be attributed to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than all others. Honesty is the first step to greatness. The secret life where your heart is reveals your real motives.

The ultimate desire of your life consists of four pillars of greatness: Vision, Passion, Action, and Principles. If we believe secondary greatness is better than primary greatness, we have no hope of achieving primary greatness."

Rudranshi Rai
Class - 9

Sunbeam School, Lahartara

Quality - Arav Agarwal

Quality is how something or someone is. Everyone has unique qualities, and we need an environment to develop our qualities. At My Good School, we all are building various qualities like leadership, listening, and teamwork. We all can choose the qualities we want within us by being self-aware, responsible, willing to learn and explore and mindful of ourselves and our surroundings.

“Quality is more important than quantity” - Steve Jobs.

Our mentor explained in our mind-body cricket session that it does not matter how many balls you play or the number of overs you bowl, but what matters is the quality of your batting and bowling, as that is what everyone will remember about us.

I feel that our qualities become our character. So, to build these qualities, we want others to remember us as we should be passionate and act with integrity, empathy, kindness and patience, as these are the basic foundations of human values to live a successful and wonderful life.

Name: Arav Agarwal
Grade: 6A
Billabong High International School, Thane

The Ultimate Strength Of Human Beings - Oshi Singh

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's third law of physics. Simply put, a good deed done by a good human will eventually return to them. Similarly, an evil act done by anyone will return to him or her. The simple rule of karma is what goes around comes around. Take Ravan from the Ramayana, for example. One wrong decision and we all know how it ended.

In a world as small yet as big as ours, it isn't easy to find people who are always honest and know the importance of Integrity. We all know what these words mean, but most don't practice them. Maybe that is why the world is the way it is. The questions might arise:  

Where exactly can you find Integrity? Why are they so important? Are they even different? Why should you be honest? Just keep reading because I promise you will surely learn something new by the end of this article. 

I like to believe Integrity lies within, waiting for itself to be found. Although Integrity and honesty are not qualities we have had since birth, we tend to develop them on our journey of life. Those lucky to have the proper upbringing create this early in life, but those who are taught to do things that aren't always morally right usually develop it a little late in life after being deceived or maybe by just finding the right company. You all must think that it is just about upbringing, but there's more to it. It isn't always about upbringing but also about practising it. Some people were on the right path but changed to the wrong one after being deceived or for various other reasons.

Practising these pleasurable qualities is what we lack because many of us are too afraid to speak the truth and wonder why we should get in trouble by telling the truth when dishonesty is shouting to save us. The moment we do this, we lose our honesty and Integrity because Integrity and honesty are qualities that go hand in hand. If you are honest, you sooner or later gain Integrity. There is also a misconception among people that honesty and Integrity mean the same, but that's not true. Honesty means telling the truth to people around us and ourselves, no matter the cost. Integrity means constantly staying on the right path by making the right decisions, like being honest. 

According to Socrates ( Greek Philosopher )

"A MAN WHO LIES TO HIMSELF HAS AN ENEMY LIVING WITHIN."

And this is not a person; it is his conscience not guiding him the right and wrong. Even though honesty is essential. We aren't always honest, are we? At some point, we all lie. But there are some exceptional cases when lying isn't bad. Yes, lying can also be good. When you lie you don't hurt someone's feelings. These are white lies. These are lies told with good intentions. 

Even though honesty and Integrity are qualities that require a lot of courage. Being honest doesn't mean things will turn out the way you hoped. People might believe you are lying, and they might not trust you, but sooner or later, the whole story will unravel itself, and people will know the truth. So if you are honest, you will get what you deserve, maybe not immediately, but it's a matter of time until you get it and when you do, your heart will know it. 

Oshi Singh

VIII D 

Gyanshree School 

Our takeaway from The Sunday School 2nd Oct 2022 - Disha and Kiran

My spinning top.

Innovators Disha and Kiran from Pestalozzi Children's Village India, friends indeed! They not only collaborated to attend The Sunday School on one device, they even created these beautiful moments!!
 

The Art Of Focus book reading made us think.

The Value Of Integrity - Anvesha Rana

Reading Chapter 18, The Art Of Focus
Honesty Wins
Human Quality: Integrity

Honesty is a value, but integrity is practice.

We can be honest without having integrity, but we can never have integrity without being completely honest. Being truthful to others is honesty and being truthful to yourself is integrity. A lot of people are honest, but hardly a handful possesses integrity. Honesty is visible to others, but integrity is the amount of transparency between the world and us. 

Trust is a vital factor for integrity. If we have confidence and belief in ourselves, we can only do what we deem right, but if we don't trust our instincts, we may end up being wrong. Faith in oneself should be the maximum, and it should be such that even if we are wrong for the entire world, we will still do what we think is right. 

The king gave seeds to everyone for planting, and the one who grew the best plant would be rewarded, but no one had the ingenuity to arrive with an empty pot. None of the people trusted themselves because the prospect of the award made them blind to any sign of failure. Still, only the young boy was truthful, confident, honest and humble enough to accept his defeat and admit that the plant hadn't grown even though he had tried his best. 

We all need to be like the boy. We need to be transparent enough in this world of opaque people, learn to absorb the rays of happiness and hope and let them penetrate through to others, and be solace to others in times of hardship. 

Anvesha Rana, 

Grade 10-B, 

Gyanshree School 

Honesty- Aanya Kumar

Today we read about Honesty. We should all be honest and have integrity towards our parents, teachers, friends, siblings and all those around us. We should not lie about anything. My parents have never scolded me for anything that I have done by mistake and confessed about the same, honestly. Instead, they have always encouraged me to speak the truth.

A Chinese emperor did not have a child. He decided to call all the children of his area to his palace. He gave each of them a boiled seed which meant that it could never grow. He gave all the children a year. All the children had grown beautiful flowers, but one boy had nothing but an empty pot. One year passed by, but the situation remained the same. The emperor examined the pots and asked the boy about what had happened. The boy said he had taken care of it, but nothing happened. The emperor then disclosed the truth about the seed. The boy was made the heir of the emperor. 

This is an ideal example where Honesty was rewarded by great appreciation. All dare to lie but not to be honest.

Aanya Kumar

Gyanshree School

Grade 5

Honesty - Rishona Chopra

Courage, Bravery, we all must have heard these terms, a question might come to our mind: What is the most significant act of courage? The answer could be: Climbing Everest? Being a soldier? Well, it is actually none of those...it is honesty. Let us see how with the help of a story:

Being Honest

Once there was a young girl named 'Mina'. She was taught to always be honest. To her, honesty seemed simple, just tell the truth. 

Once playing in school, she pushed her best friend 'Lily' so hard that it started to bleed. Mina didn't mean to do that at all. She went to her, and along with her other friends, they took her to the infirmary. 

Luckily it wasn't that serious, and the next day she was much better but wasn't able to play. 

Lily was furious at the person who pushed her. She was unaware that it was Mina who did that. She told Mina that she was angry at the person who had made her. That was so rude.

Mina, too, was hurt; she knew what she did hurt her friend. She just didn't dare to stand up and tell the truth. It was tough. That moment she realized how hard being honest could really be. 

Then she remembered telling her mother how simple being honest was, and now she didn't have the courage, to be honest. She thought that she might as well try telling the truth and tell Lily the truth. 

Lily couldn't believe it! 'Did you actually do that?' she said, surprised. 'I didn't mean to at all. I am really sorry,' said Mina. 'You aren't mad at me?'. 

'Why would I be? You were honest. And I believe you. I am sure it was a mistake.' said Lily with a smile.

It was courageous of you to stand up.

Like Mina took the brave step of telling the truth, it did look difficult. Imagine you being in such a situation. Would you speak the truth? The most significant act of courage is to, without fear, be honest! 

The terms honesty and integrity are often used interchangeably, but they are pretty different. They can be honesty without integrity but no integrity without honesty. Honesty is being truthful and upfront, while virtue is doing right without worrying. Or I both are equally important are one of the most essential values of life.

Rishona Chopra

Grade V

Gyanshree School

Honesty - Anvesha Rana

"Integrity is telling ourselves the truth, and Honesty is telling the truth to others."

Honesty is probably one of those values we have talked about since childhood. Our parents and teachers often remind us to be honest. There may also be many situations through which we all have demonstrated honesty, but in the long term, challenging situations might suppress us to dishonesty. These are the circumstances that test our character, even if hope keeps us going, one has to be realistic and absolutely honest. Just because it is challenging does not mean taking an easier route. 

Some of the ordinary men and women who have displayed extraordinary honesty are Lal Bahadur Shastri, Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Jones and Ivan Fernandez Anaya. They did not let the society determine their choices but took their decisions as per their own judgements. Their choices exemplified them and inspired others to take on similar steps. 

Another instance of honesty are the Nghah Lou Dawr shops, this word literally means Shops Without Shopkeepers. At the Nghah Lou Dawr shops there are no shopkeepers, the only things present are the goods along with a rate list and deposit box. The customers take whatever items they have to buy, calculate the amount and leave the money in a deposit box. For many years these shops have worked upon the virtue of honesty, trust and faith and continue to do so. It is tough to discover a place blossoming with belief in a world filled with duplicity and dishonesty. 

We all need to be honest before we have integrity for there can be honesty without virtue, but no integrity without honesty. Honesty is one of the core values required in any person, it shapes us into a better human being. Honesty makes others believe in us so that we can also put our faith in them because of honesty we have friends, we have brothers and we have sisters. Without honesty there is no one for us and we are no one for them. 

If you want to be trusted, be honest. 

Anvesha Rana

Grade 10-B

Gyanshree School