The Bigger Picture: Yesterday was the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
While I am not one to necessarily commemorate the death of an individual, or glorify a most horrific act of violence, the passing of this day gives me an opportunity to connect with this man - his ideas and practices.
Internationally, Gandhi is recognised as a figure that embodied a movement for justice through non-violence. As an Indian, this makes me feel proud. As a human, this gives me hope.
I find it extremely helpful to be able to look into recent history and find there a person who, while unremarkable in many ways - average student, not particularly successful in his career and with no extraordinary family background to propel him forward - would hold out for the unity of humanity against cruelty and for the common good.
Gandhi not only considered ideas, but took daring steps to try them in practice. The attractiveness of his courage and conviction brought him influence. Because he saw every individual as part of his vision, he became significant to us in history.
What allows a person to realise their significance? I believe this an important question. It is not important to wonder what makes a person significant, for I know the answer to this: life.
There can be no doubt that each individual living thing is important. Life embodies meaning. Humans, with our intelligence and ability to make decisions, can support or destroy anything. We have an impact. This can be judged by our relationships with each other or how deeply we can change the environment around us.
But, would we go on being careless, destroying things around us, wasting resources, glorifying materialism, being half-hearted with love or neglecting our minds if we realised how truly significant we were? I do not believe we could stand it. We wouldn't be able to live with selfishness.
Gandhi certainly didn't go looking to fill his life with things falsely promising to make him feel better. Yet, he had a greater impact on humanity than any of us could imagine. If we followed his direction, we could transform the world out of poverty, war, sexism and violence. And so, one of the most important questions of our time is to understand what is it that makes a person realise their significance.
This is nearly the same question as how does one build self-esteem? For self-esteem can be defined as a sense of one's significance.
In this, my first lesson was to realise that self-esteem wasn't a feeling. Knowing and believing in yourself didn't always mean feeling good. And the pursuit of feeling good would never build self-esteem. Rather, self-esteem becomes apparent in the history of one's actions. Can you understand what is really important in sustaining life and creating a healthy environment for everyone around you? Can you decide to act in ways that ensure this in the world, regardless of how it makes you feel? Can you believe that if you do this, everything else around will correct itself?
In this way, I have discovered that self-esteem is a practice. It is not easy. It is not something that makes you feel good in the beginning. However, when practised, it is something that makes you useful. It allows you to function in ways to come up with solutions rather than create more problems. And it does make you happy.
I find these examples in history significant. For example, the 26th of January also just passed. This day is celebrated annually as India's Republic Day.
Even more interesting to me is the fact that it was declared and celebrated as such 17 years before the British finally granted independence.
I find this inspiring: that a people would not wait to be defined by their oppressors, but defined themselves against oppression in their own terms.
While today, it seems the nation is struggling to enact self-esteem - suffering from the same disease that has caught fire in Ireland in recent times, consumerism at the expense of justice and the interconnectedness of humanity - I still find it useful to look to history and see the example of a nation daring to do what was difficult but right.
Unfortunately, much of history is told to us through wars. Rather than gaining hope, we learn about violence and the struggle people face to believe in themselves more.
It is important that we discover and make use of examples in our history where people dared to put into practice a commitment to interconnectedness and non-violence.
Most importantly, where they succeeded in developing some momentum, and so model to us true human potential.
I would like us to do this in Ireland, for us to join together in collecting those events from contemporary Irish history that teach us how to practice self-esteem and achieve peace in our lives today and into the future.
• Shalini Sinha has founded Forward Movement, a social justice clinic where she practises Life Coaching, the Bowen Technique, and is training in nutritional medicine.