When a man goes to great lengths to achieve his dreams, breaking down barriers and overcoming obstacles, the world usually applauds him. He is praised and supported, revered and written about. 

But one man, replete with the admirable qualities we love to see in others and in ourselves, found himself being abhorred by history. 

Typecast into the role of villain, his brilliance all but forgotten, Ravana became the embodiment of evil. 

When I first heard the Ramayana story as a child, two things were very clear to me. In the painfully simplistic black and white world of a five-year old, Rama is the hero. Ravana is the villain. 

I wanted to grow up to be like Rama, and avoid being like Ravana at all cost. 

And yet, today, after years and education have coloured in the spaces between my black and white childhood, it occurred to me to go back and re-interpret these certainties, and I found that against all odds, I have perhaps as much Ravana in me as Rama, and I find him intriguing. 

He valued a good education, and went out of his way to get it. 

Ravana was learned. Extraordinarily so. In fact, some say his ten heads represent his great learning, the fact that he had knowledge of the six shastras and four Vedas. 

I have always been a big fan of education, I've traveled the world to study in many different places, I want to get a Phd someday, and I still wouldn't catch up to him in learning. 

Even Rama addressed him as Maha Brahman (the great Brahman) in deference to his learning, then who was I to think of him as just a rakshasa? 

Shouldn't Ravana be an inspiration to me? His dedication to learning inspires me to learn more. 

He was relentless in his pursuit of his passion. 

He was an over-achiever, who was willing to make great sacrifices for his dreams. 

When he was in tapasya, the story says he cut off his head ten times to please Shiva, and each time a new head grew so he could continue his tapasya. 

He was a man that conquered all odds, who chased big dreams, and was not afraid to get up after he had fallen down. When I hit a stumbling block, and fall over, I find it difficult to get up. Ego and knees bruised I often contemplate giving up. 

And yet, people such as him are the inspiration that get me back up again, because perseverance is a quality I greatly admire and aspire to. 

He was a benevolent ruler who cared for his people. 

In Lanka, Ravana was a generous and enabling ruler. He ruled wisely and was beloved by the people of Lanka, who flourished under him. In fact, he is still revered as a benevolent lord in some parts of the world. 

Of the qualities that I aim to adopt as a leader, the first and most important one to me has always been benevolence. I want to be generous with what I know and enable those around me to grow. 

With all these great qualities, Ravana, who seemed destined to become a wise and powerful ruler, somehow ended up playing the villain's role in the mainstream narrative of the story. 

If I espouse the same beliefs and aim for the same qualities that he has, what then can make me different from him? What can make my journey and my destiny different from his? How can I make sure to go down in history as a Rama, and avoid the fate of the brilliant Ravana? 

The answer, I believe, lies in the one mistake, the fatal flaw, of Ravana that led to his downfall. A mistake we can choose to avoid. 

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely 

Ravana succumbed to the allure of his own achievements. He began to believe that he was better than anyone, that he was invincible, in fact, even that he could be immortal. He was infected with the vilest disease of all, arrogance. 

When he thought he was being insulted, his arrogance flared up. Kind of like mine does when I feel embarrassed or belittled by somebody. 'How dare he?' I have found myself thinking. 'Who the hell does he think he is, talking to me like that.' 

Overcome by his own power and confidence, believing he could not be defeated, and succumbing to an over-inflated ego, Ravana made one fatally wrong decision: to take revenge. 

Revenge, as is often proven by our history and literature, ends up causing the downfall of the one blinded by its venom. 

But as bad as revenge is, it's a natural human instinct. And I, for one, have felt its siren call as well. When I am insulted, I think about lashing out. Hurting someone, with my words, even actions. I have dreamt up scenarios where someone I am angry with gets hurt, or falls on their face in public. I remember feeling embarrassingly pleased when someone I was annoyed with had their laptop stolen by an auto-driver in Cambodia! 

There it is. The Ravana that lives within me. That Ravana that lives maybe within all of us. The pettiness and vengefulness that is fed by arrogance. 

You can choose your destiny 

And that's where my story can diverge from his. Lying within each one of us is the possibility of greatness, the potential to achieve great good, or great evil. 

Ravana had achieved great things, through his learning, through his devotion, through his leadership, but the more powerful he became the more he was corrupted by arrogance. It was this arrogance that led him to defy gods and start pointless wars, until led by his ego he ended up slain by the arrow of a man, much humbler in his own power, and therefore, a God, Rama. 

And which one we end up with is a choice we make. Whether you want to be a Rama or a Ravana, a *deva or a rakshasa, both possibilities lie within you, and are in your control of your destiny. 

And control starts with your thoughts. We may think thoughts are harmless, after all they are just in our head. But as one ancient quote teaches us: 

Watch your thoughts; they become words;

Watch your words; they become actions;

Watch your actions; they become habit;

Watch your habits; they become character;

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Recognizing your thoughts, and rising above them, controlling them, therein lies your destiny. Quelling the arrogance within and submitting to the humility of your humanity. 

So choose humility. Accepting that you are not perfect, that you are not better than anyone, that you are a work in progress with the possibility to keep growing as a person everyday. 

As one of the greatest writers that ever lived, Leo Tolstoy, wrote: 

"An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life-becoming a better person." 

Instead of living day after day blissfully ignorant of the ego that lies within you, stopping you from becoming the god that you can be, this Diwali use the lamps glittering on windowsills across the country to shine a light inside you. Discover what lies within you, and begin your own journey to your destiny - to replace arrogance with humility, Ravana with Rama, and darkness with light. 

Happy Diwali! 

*god or demon 

The above has been written by Anisha Virji in Common Sense Living by Mark Ford