Last Saturday, I met my childhood friend after a long time. We went for a long walk and discussed something very fundamental in terms of questions and answers. Here is the summary of what we discussed.
Q 1: how / what we speak doesn’t matter as long as our hearts are good.
A: Only we have access to our hearts and minds, not others. Communication, tone and body language are the only things that connect people.
How we speak, how we communicate and what kinds of words we use are equally important to the good hearts we have. With all the good heart, if you don’t convey your message in the true intent, other person will not be able to see our good hearts. This shows our personality and respect to the other person. For example, if we don’t have the following things in place, we may ourselves set a bad perception about ourselves, if
a) We always shout at somebody or the other
b) We are finding mistakes in self and others
c) we speak without proper grammar and words
d) the language is very casual and rustic
Reflect back on how we speak at home and with others, it throws lot of interesting patterns, because of which some people are not taken seriously.
We all are educated know better words for each of the things we do, but why are we not using the good words and speak well. If we don’t use the education for making our daily life better, what’s the purpose of education – only for jobs?
Q 2: People retaining the nativity are considered to be genuine.
A: Following tradition means that we need to respect our culture, language and traditions, not spoiling all of them unknowingly.
I know most of us would feel changing ourselves amount to breaking the tradition or becoming too formal / sophisticated. It is not so, along with having good communication style, we can also be more caring and loving towards each other.
Q 3: I have nothing to hide, my life is an open book, and I will be speak / tell everything to everyone and be same with every one.
A: Everyone makes an impression about you from the way you speak. If you share everything, cry about your problems, gossiping endlessly and speaking low of yourself or others, will only make them feel you are not capable of managing things on your own or cribber or irresponsible. So, it is very important to think before speaking and know what to speak. It will help maintain cordial relationships without pushing every relationship into crisis.
Q 4: Not taking pride in anything
A: we come across people who are not proud of their background, home, place, country or company. One has to be aspirational, work for a better life and achieve bigger things, but one doesn’t take pride in anything, then it is attitude which will come in the way.
We see people who are very happy in life, talking about their background very passionately or taking people to their small houses and serving with much love and care.
Whereas on the other side, we see people ashamed of inviting people to their houses or not talking proudly about the company they work for or even masking their real identity – these people are in perpetual trap.
If one doesn’t take pride in the related things, how can anyone else be proud of him / her or respect.
Q 5: Everybody should be same when compared to others in capability, behavior
A – Comparison makes our lives miserable, everyone is made to be different, some are good in one thing and some others are good in something else. We have to accept what they are good at and not enforce too much on our thinking.
Don’t compartmentalize, everyone is different, 80% may be normal or will fit into the regular schema of things, whereas remaining 20% may be different from the rest. We have to know what we want, have clarity on what to expect, and then automatically things will fall in place.
Q 6; We want others to be perfect in all respects, and then we consider him / her as good.
A: if so, He / she would be equivalent to the god; there will be no difference between god and that person. Everyone is born with some inadequacy or the other. For god’s sake don’t expect people to be 100% complete, so understand whether they are passionate about what they are doing or sheer lazy about doing anything. Mix with the people who are passionate about what they are doing; their positive energy will rub on you. At the end of the day, it is my life, I have to manage it.
Q 7: Hearing nice things about me from others is end all –nirvana
A: I should be clear of what I want, what makes me happy. We have to do things we like and at the same time, not deliberately hurt anyone in the process. We are going for recognition from others when I must recognize myself. Without I knowing what I want how can I expect everyone else know what I want.
Q 8: I want to be honest with people, so I want to be judgmental
A: How many times have we faltered with our judgments on people? How many times have we repented, how many times have we avoided them and so on. Do we really have to judge others and compartmentalize them into good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, trustworthy or not. Every time we change our stance, it will be very difficult for our ego to go with the change, so we will become very defensive after some time. It leads lot of bitterness which is not really worth all the tension.
If we reflect, there is nothing absolute in our lives except birth and death (this too some philosophers say are not absolute), Veerappan, the smuggler is a bad person for most of us, but I am sure for the people in his village, he is a Robin Hood. There are many examples in our daily life, where we typecast somebody into something, and later find it is not true and he /she acted in a certain way given that situation.
Q 9: The whole world is cruel to me.
A: I am the world for myself. Is world more cruel to me or I am cruel to myself. This needs us to look deep into our self and see, whether I am snubbing or am living with low esteem or without pride, and think others are being harsh on me.
Q 10: l have to control everything, everyone should think like me or behave the way I want
A: Every person has to go through the life, learn and implement solutions that are best suited for him/her. Believe me, there is no best / absolute solution, it is all relative, but we have to be the owners of our life. If you really want to change a person, listen to him. Don’t lecture him / her or force your ideas on them. Everyone will have reason to behave in a certain way, understand/ listen. Then things will change automatically.
Q 11: We are humble, so we speak low of ourselves
A: if we think low of ourselves, how can anyone treat us any better? We have to be confident, clear and assertive in our communication and behavior. Also, have expectations and communicate to people around you, so that they know what you are expecting clearly. Don’t try to punish others or scare if other person (especially in the early days of relationship) commits any mistake, they will switch off thinking that you are too rigid.
Q 12: We need others to be nice to us, so that we can lead a peaceful life
A: Peace of mind is within us, not outside. Everyone in this world have problems, it is how take them and resolve them. Some problems need attention and on some, we can’t do much, so accept them. At the end of the day, we are the owners of the our minds and life, we have to control it.
Its good to be good to others, but they will have their own tensions and compulsions which force them to behave in a certain way or say certain things. Lets not get bogged down by what others say about us.
Q 13: I want to be aggressive always otherwise others will overtake me
A: this is one of the biggest conceptions, everyone of us have, this creates lot of insecurity in us which puts into the vicious loop. We have to be confident about ourselves and our strengths. Clarity of thought, communication and implementation will be a long term assets, you may lose in some, but overall and over long term you will be at peace with yourself.
One of the hazards of the competition is, one tends to become too generalist without mastering one area of specialization. Both specialists and generalists have their own pluses and minus. But even generalist has to have one area of competence that will save one in the crisis.
Another related issue is, some people endlessly pull down others in front of others. It is sure sign of highest insecurity. One has to learn to deal with such people in a more apt way.
Q 14: I am seeing misery everywhere
A: it all depends on which frequency you have tuned (Like your radio connecting to a FM channel) or the way your mind is trained. If you speak or think only about problems; layoffs, divorces and hatred, you will hear more about them. Others will speak to you only about those. If your mind is tuned to the right frequency – to be happy, you will hear / see the positive things.
Q 15: I want to be cautious (find mistakes), because I want to be seen as correct or I want to be safe.
A: First listen, then give logic and then advice; else others will think you are enforcing your thoughts on them.Always finding mistakes in others means you are not taking responsibility not otherwise. There is a thin line between sounding precaution and negative. It is very easy to be pessimistic than optimistic, because optimism requires you to take responsibility.
I want to leave this last thought with you for introspection: if I am able to identify a particular habit or attitude in others, I am sure I have that within me already, otherwise how could I