Shhh!
I’ve got a little, teenie-weenie secret for you. I’m not flattering you, but I’m telling you the gospel truth.
So, here goes:
You are special and you are unique. You are the only one of your kind. You are the only one with your specific combination of genes. You are the only one with THAT combination of talents, experiences, abilities and personality. There has never been anyone just like you and there would never be anyone just like you. Oh yes, you share some similarities with certain individuals (past, present and future) but you are not quite exactly like them. As it were, you are THE REAL McCOY!!!
For those of you who are quite familiar with my write-ups, I’m sure that by now, you know that I’m a lover of history and I also love retelling stories. So, in this particular article too, I’d be keeping true to style (A leopard can’t wash off the spots on its skin, can it?).
I’m very positive that not many people, even die-hard boxing fans, have the faintest idea of who Norman Selby was. Well, he was an American professional boxer in the early 1900s and he went by the pseudonym KID McCOY. It happened that Kid McCoy had a very colourful and stellar career in the boxing ring; and his life outside the ring. Such was his interesting lifestyle that he became the inspiration for so many legends amongst the Americans. Kid McCoy, however, had a messed up life at the end and he ended up ending his life by suicide (pun intended).
One of the many legends about Kid McCoy went as follows:
It happened that while Kid McCoy was a lion in the rings, he was a man with a slight build. One fateful day, when he wasn’t having any fight, Kid McCoy decided to take a stroll to a nearby bar and get a few drinks. He had hardly settled down at the bar when a heavily drunk man staggered towards Kid McCoy and started disturbing him. But our hero, ever the gentleman, gently warned the inebriate man to take a walk. The drunk man refused to leave in peace but continued to piss Kid McCoy off. People nearby started warning the drunk man that the fellow that was being disturbed was the American Boxing Champion- Kid McCoy. At this, the drunkard laughed and scoffed and continued brewing a brouhaha at the bar. This went on for a long time until our ‘gentlemanly hero’ finally felt that he had been pushed to the wall. Kid McCoy got up quietly, walked up to the drunk man and taught the guy a few lessons in practical boxing (Actually, he gave the drunkard an upper cut to the jaw!). The man who had been drunk only a few seconds ago instantly sobered up and testified, ‘Wow! It’s actually THE REAL MCCOY!!!’.
Now, no one’s telling you to roll up your sleeves, flex your muscles and start punching people left, right and centre, just to prove a point. No, but it’s high time you started comporting yourself with the knowledge of who you are. I keep on repeating this, ‘The fact that you now in THAT uncomfortable position you currently find yourself does not mean that that’s all there is to write about you’. No, that’s not the entire picture. Your best is within you and it is yet to come forth. You are original, you are unique, you are one of your kind. Later on, you’d look back at all those low points of your life that eventually shaped and refined your person and just start to shed tears. Yes, tears of joy!!!
In conclusion, I could easily mumble something about a decoy and the real mcCoy, but instead, I’d leave you this quote by Hermann Hesse, ‘Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again’