Have you made your statement?
Many of our decisions are based on thoughts that arise within us influenced by our need to be recognized. It is our vanity at work. Once when I was a lot younger I was asked this question – What is the difference between Pride and Vanity? But that was then and I was completely foxed. The teacher then took the trouble of explaining it to me that that pride was what we thought of ourselves and vanity was what we wanted others to think of us.
Since then I have always kept a close watch on my thoughts about myself and would try to fit them into either “pride” or “vanity” category. It is quite a difficult task if we are sincere about it.
This leads us straight to the subject under discussion. A few stories will explain my point better. Let us use these stories to understand and put us on our guard.
Here is a young man; comes from an established industrial family and the only son. It is not difficult for him to think of himself as a cut above the rest. Then he goes to USA for his MBA. Eventually he returns home and joins his father to run the organization. He is allowed to run his own companies that he is allowed to form. His father had already a staff around so he was expected to use the same. This created a subtle two layer clash of interests as his father was keeping a strict control over the running of the company and the staff was not sure who to follow. The knee jerk of the son was to try and control more of what was happening in his companies. So every now and then he would call his executives and instruct them in detail about everything and confuse the issue; even going to the extent of dictating the letters on behalf of his executives and crossing the “T”s and dotting the “I”s as how situations should be managed in the field. This was not only annoying but time wasting as often he would keep his executives locked up in his office for hours in so-called meetings. He was, as I saw it, making a statements galore; some for his pride and some for his vanity. It was needed for his pride to show that he was running the show and not just a puppet around there; and for his vanity he needed to make sure that his executives recognized his talents, education and grasp of the situation. He would go to great lengths to show-off his inside knowledge even of the details of the field even though he never left the comfort of his office. An awful chasm would be created in what needed to be done and what the boss thought should be done. The poor executives were literally sandwiched in between the directives and at the same time under the pressure to show results. The mess his personality was in soon began to show in the results of the company’s balance sheet; a first class blue-print for fiasco.
So on further analysis what essentially needs to be understood is the question : are we making statements or doing things that need to be done?
One very good formula to separate the requirement based actions from the statement based actions is by asking the question: Am I trying to impress others with this action? Am I keeping at the back of my mind what effect it will have on others? A little introspection will do.
Let us say you go to the doctor for some pain in the back. Nobody knows about it and you are stoic enough to keep it yourself. There the doctor takes x-rays and advises rest and medication. You do all these and come to office the next week, refreshed and happy and when asked where and what you were up to, you smile and tell them that you had a holiday as you felt the need for it. That being that. This is a requirement based activity and nothing of statement-making comes into the picture.
In contrast I will tell you another story. A lady manager of a bank was required to go to inspect the veracity & genuineness of a client who had asked for a loan for a car. At first glance the address was from a lower middle class neighborhood and that too in an area not known for its nice ways. So she asked me to go along with her. There was really no way our car could go inside the colony. We left it out on the main road and went in. The streets were not more than 10 feet wide and cluttered up with shops spreading out all over the road. The client had asked to buy a Swift Maruti which had been launched recently and was quite the rage of the lot considering themselves as avant-garde. Here too, in this case, the buyers were relatively young people, quite evidently buying a swift more to make a statement than anything else as they were quite happy using a motorbike for ease of maneuvering in traffic. I could not contain myself and did ask where they were going to park the car. On the street outside they told me candidly. I kept my peace after that as it was really between the bank and them and of course the neighbors when they would find their way blocked by the wide-bodied swift.
Innocuous things like buying a tie, pen, lipstick or dress can reflect our deeper thoughts. Are we buying because we absolutely want to because the product appeals to us and complements our life-style and our comfort zone or there are other untold motives like making sure that others would notice how classy, super-selective we are? And often it may come to pass that nobody bothers at all and all the money spent and trouble taken comes to a disappointing nothing.
So when you take decisions just reflect also upon the reality factor; if you are doing something for making a statement or really and objectively it needs to be done. The yardsticks that we are judged by are small, very tiny actions and doings that give us away. When our actions become obvious statement-making ploys, we are only inviting derision and sometimes even trouble.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Value of Appreciation.
The Value of Appreciation.
We, of course love to be appreciated; even flattery is welcome as there being some basis of truth in it somewhere. We judge and work out our own place under the sun from comments we hear about ourselves. I wonder how many of us realize that this is also the biggest chink in our amour. From a very pragmatic view of life, we have to live with others and therefore what they think is important. The point of debate is how much value can we and should we give to whom and why.
The first angle to this debate is on the source of appreciation; or for that matter criticism. It is a very rare person who has risen above his personal likes and dislikes, prejudices and desires so all comments become by this very nature of things suspect. I would go far enough to say that we are never wholly ever sincere in the words we utter because in every thing we do or say there is always an element of self-appreciation or the need for it showing through. In straight and blunt language this means that our personal agenda makes us say and act and there is some manipulation involved to make others think and behave on a track of our choosing. Criticisms in contrast have always some element of showing-off or/and spite.
My own experience is that we take, broadly speaking, 3 basic factors in our judging of others. These are definitely involving our own personal level of maturity and the basic Mother-nature-given character. First and most common is the judgment passed on the basis of physical appearance. Our looks are an accident of birth but we take it as a personal achievement and we then judge the world by a standard we lay down with ourselves as the chief example. Anyone who falls within this gambit is one of us and “good” and conversely the rest are down-graded to lesser beings. Do we realize how easily we become open to manipulation because of the credence we would give to our own need to categorize? All somebody has to do to enter in our good books is to praise our handsomeness, strength, clothes or possessions and such superficial projections. The best that can be said of this yardstick is that we rarely come close enough to others to have any other; yet this is too subjective to be of any real value.
The other two factors are our education and philosophy of life. It is easy to understand that we are conditioned by our education and the principles taught at home or followed by our parents and immediate society. When we go out into life we take decisions based on our education and prejudices. Life teaches us the correct value of things by the results that ensue and this gives rise to our philosophy of life. Life is short and the baggage of faulty decisions soon starts weighing upon us. Most of the baggage is from the value that we sometime or other gave to the comments unleashed at us by others. Rarely do we have the courage to distance ourselves from what others think of us. Many pattern their entire lives on the thought “What will they say?” A lot many people never come to terms with reality at all. They spent an entire lifetime trying to “change” the world to their conceptions of how things should be which results in anguish and depression. They refuse to learn from experience or share anyone’s view. Wherever these persons have some hold they impose themselves and as they are not in tune with life truly, they create waves of accidents and pain.
The truth is that we should always remember that appreciation is never wholly sincere, nor is criticism and adding a pinch of salt to all we hear from others is the correct approach to it all. In relationships, we must accept that perceptions change with time and we need to change with them. I would also take the radical step of making drastic changes in relations and business tactics. It is imperative that we neither fully allow ourselves to be swamped by opinions and comments nor carry them too long in our conscience; take note of all that is coming your way, then be honest enough to look within yourself, make the necessary note, adjustments and changes as needed and go ahead with life. It is simple logic that when you have made the change, the past is no longer relevant and should be dropped like a used sheath and forgotten otherwise it will be like a mill-stone on your shoulders very similar to the Chinese punishment of yore.
It is easy to say so but we need to learn to sift between appreciation and flattery as well as spiteful abuse and positive criticism. So it follows that only those who have the courage to live by their own perceptions, open to what life is trying to tell them with a lot sincerity to be objective, specially with their own selves will really grow, succeed and find happiness.
We, of course love to be appreciated; even flattery is welcome as there being some basis of truth in it somewhere. We judge and work out our own place under the sun from comments we hear about ourselves. I wonder how many of us realize that this is also the biggest chink in our amour. From a very pragmatic view of life, we have to live with others and therefore what they think is important. The point of debate is how much value can we and should we give to whom and why.
The first angle to this debate is on the source of appreciation; or for that matter criticism. It is a very rare person who has risen above his personal likes and dislikes, prejudices and desires so all comments become by this very nature of things suspect. I would go far enough to say that we are never wholly ever sincere in the words we utter because in every thing we do or say there is always an element of self-appreciation or the need for it showing through. In straight and blunt language this means that our personal agenda makes us say and act and there is some manipulation involved to make others think and behave on a track of our choosing. Criticisms in contrast have always some element of showing-off or/and spite.
My own experience is that we take, broadly speaking, 3 basic factors in our judging of others. These are definitely involving our own personal level of maturity and the basic Mother-nature-given character. First and most common is the judgment passed on the basis of physical appearance. Our looks are an accident of birth but we take it as a personal achievement and we then judge the world by a standard we lay down with ourselves as the chief example. Anyone who falls within this gambit is one of us and “good” and conversely the rest are down-graded to lesser beings. Do we realize how easily we become open to manipulation because of the credence we would give to our own need to categorize? All somebody has to do to enter in our good books is to praise our handsomeness, strength, clothes or possessions and such superficial projections. The best that can be said of this yardstick is that we rarely come close enough to others to have any other; yet this is too subjective to be of any real value.
The other two factors are our education and philosophy of life. It is easy to understand that we are conditioned by our education and the principles taught at home or followed by our parents and immediate society. When we go out into life we take decisions based on our education and prejudices. Life teaches us the correct value of things by the results that ensue and this gives rise to our philosophy of life. Life is short and the baggage of faulty decisions soon starts weighing upon us. Most of the baggage is from the value that we sometime or other gave to the comments unleashed at us by others. Rarely do we have the courage to distance ourselves from what others think of us. Many pattern their entire lives on the thought “What will they say?” A lot many people never come to terms with reality at all. They spent an entire lifetime trying to “change” the world to their conceptions of how things should be which results in anguish and depression. They refuse to learn from experience or share anyone’s view. Wherever these persons have some hold they impose themselves and as they are not in tune with life truly, they create waves of accidents and pain.
The truth is that we should always remember that appreciation is never wholly sincere, nor is criticism and adding a pinch of salt to all we hear from others is the correct approach to it all. In relationships, we must accept that perceptions change with time and we need to change with them. I would also take the radical step of making drastic changes in relations and business tactics. It is imperative that we neither fully allow ourselves to be swamped by opinions and comments nor carry them too long in our conscience; take note of all that is coming your way, then be honest enough to look within yourself, make the necessary note, adjustments and changes as needed and go ahead with life. It is simple logic that when you have made the change, the past is no longer relevant and should be dropped like a used sheath and forgotten otherwise it will be like a mill-stone on your shoulders very similar to the Chinese punishment of yore.
It is easy to say so but we need to learn to sift between appreciation and flattery as well as spiteful abuse and positive criticism. So it follows that only those who have the courage to live by their own perceptions, open to what life is trying to tell them with a lot sincerity to be objective, specially with their own selves will really grow, succeed and find happiness.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Listen and be Damned
Listen and Be Damned.
I am tired of being told that to live a more efficient life I need to become a good listener. Open any book on self development, spiritual emancipation, marriage counseling or management science and the same advice glares at you from all sides. All the glitches are from poor listening if there is any listening in the first place. Not a single writer, philosopher or guru ever mentions the other side of the picture.
Tell me how will listening help? I am here to make my life easy; not yours. If I listen, I put myself in the unedifying position of wanting to better myself and do a good job. This would in turn bring in appreciation and then everybody would be gunning for me to do more. No sir! I just wish to bide my time and would like a lot of margin to hedge my bets. I love people with poor language abilities and even poorer interpersonal behavior patterns. In this situation I am always able to find excuses and faults enough to cover my intentions of not wanting to do anything in the first place.
I sincerely have not understood how listening could be of help to me. I live in my very private cocoon; perfectly smug in my little comfortable corner. I am aware of my faults and till date I have been covering them up quite well; or at least I think so. From what I can see, listening can only bring me a host of complications. I can site many examples. I would rather spend my time arguing it out (what would politely be called discussion) than really going about doing wonderfully all that I am capable of doing and gather praises.
My wife asks me to put out the garbage. But as she likes to talk long distance with her face mostly in the opposite direction with her face stuck inside some pot or shelf, it gives me the perfect excuse to feign as if I never heard anything and ignore the situation, hoping that she would do the job herself. If I am caught out there would be enough arguments up my sleeve to at least put up a show of indignation. You see I simply cannot make it easy for her. If I did so, the number of jobs that I would end up doing would only grow in number. Believe me, I am better off with my reputation of being absent-minded, partly deaf or weak in the head or whatever.
In the office, I always put up a good show of listening while my mind is flitting all over the globe. It is a good thing they can’t see my thoughts. Last evening I was called in by my boss. He wanted me to receive a company head at the airport; a job he was slated to be doing himself. Now I definitely do not appreciate being ploughed into this kind of secretarial duties. So I said nothing then, but an hour before the flight, I rang up the boss to tell him that I was 40 kms away on another job I had been assigned and docilely started asking him for advice on how to complete the job to his entire satisfaction. Now he was in a fix. Here I was asking for advice while he wanted to be angry and ask me why I was not on the way to the airport. Finally he did ask the question. I had already rehearsed my answer. So I showed surprise and replied that was it not in the morning that I was supposed to go to the airport. The boss fumed and knew that he been outfoxed and went himself eventually. So you see!
Now I am no junior either but my boss is one step ahead of me and does not let me forget it. He tries to ply me with work that he should be doing himself. My plate is already full and he knows it. So what; that does not stop him. Now you would readily have reckoned, the whole of my existence is to slip out of sticky situations. If I listened it would be the end of me.
The truth of the matter is that humanity does not want to listen. We live in a very self-centered world and are content to be there. Listening opens us to betterment and that is not really desired. What would happen to our personal agendas that in the normal course we dare not expose to others? Listening allows seeds to be sowed in the heart which will, of course, grow and upset the status quo no end.
Here I have just brushed the subject as far as we see in our daily existences. The truth is that NOT listening is the norm; even in other more truthful environments like spirituality, ashrams and religious societies. Life is lived like a charade with many lies being promoted and practised because it suits everybody. I look at my own and the life of others around me. Believe me I am not really surprised. I don’t see anyone achieving their human aims by playing clean and fair. Lies, even evident lies are vehemently promoted and lapped up. To believe me all you need is to see some of the adverts on the TV, some of the truths propagated by religious leaders, some of the principles of schooling in practice, most of the medical principles advanced and found wanting and continued nevertheless.
Listening means peeping in corners we are really not keen on. It then insists that attention be paid, being alert and aware. Who in the name of heaven really wants all that? I am appalled at the idea that my amour proper will have to take a back seat. This wont do at all. Listening would mean throwing the science of keeping appearances in the dustbin and revealing ourselves in all our insincere nakedness to the world. Sorry this is not acceptable and that is that!
I am here to fulfill my selfish ends and am not averse to join in the drama. Once I have made my pile that will allow me to live out my life to my wishes, who would care about listening anyway?
I am tired of being told that to live a more efficient life I need to become a good listener. Open any book on self development, spiritual emancipation, marriage counseling or management science and the same advice glares at you from all sides. All the glitches are from poor listening if there is any listening in the first place. Not a single writer, philosopher or guru ever mentions the other side of the picture.
Tell me how will listening help? I am here to make my life easy; not yours. If I listen, I put myself in the unedifying position of wanting to better myself and do a good job. This would in turn bring in appreciation and then everybody would be gunning for me to do more. No sir! I just wish to bide my time and would like a lot of margin to hedge my bets. I love people with poor language abilities and even poorer interpersonal behavior patterns. In this situation I am always able to find excuses and faults enough to cover my intentions of not wanting to do anything in the first place.
I sincerely have not understood how listening could be of help to me. I live in my very private cocoon; perfectly smug in my little comfortable corner. I am aware of my faults and till date I have been covering them up quite well; or at least I think so. From what I can see, listening can only bring me a host of complications. I can site many examples. I would rather spend my time arguing it out (what would politely be called discussion) than really going about doing wonderfully all that I am capable of doing and gather praises.
My wife asks me to put out the garbage. But as she likes to talk long distance with her face mostly in the opposite direction with her face stuck inside some pot or shelf, it gives me the perfect excuse to feign as if I never heard anything and ignore the situation, hoping that she would do the job herself. If I am caught out there would be enough arguments up my sleeve to at least put up a show of indignation. You see I simply cannot make it easy for her. If I did so, the number of jobs that I would end up doing would only grow in number. Believe me, I am better off with my reputation of being absent-minded, partly deaf or weak in the head or whatever.
In the office, I always put up a good show of listening while my mind is flitting all over the globe. It is a good thing they can’t see my thoughts. Last evening I was called in by my boss. He wanted me to receive a company head at the airport; a job he was slated to be doing himself. Now I definitely do not appreciate being ploughed into this kind of secretarial duties. So I said nothing then, but an hour before the flight, I rang up the boss to tell him that I was 40 kms away on another job I had been assigned and docilely started asking him for advice on how to complete the job to his entire satisfaction. Now he was in a fix. Here I was asking for advice while he wanted to be angry and ask me why I was not on the way to the airport. Finally he did ask the question. I had already rehearsed my answer. So I showed surprise and replied that was it not in the morning that I was supposed to go to the airport. The boss fumed and knew that he been outfoxed and went himself eventually. So you see!
Now I am no junior either but my boss is one step ahead of me and does not let me forget it. He tries to ply me with work that he should be doing himself. My plate is already full and he knows it. So what; that does not stop him. Now you would readily have reckoned, the whole of my existence is to slip out of sticky situations. If I listened it would be the end of me.
The truth of the matter is that humanity does not want to listen. We live in a very self-centered world and are content to be there. Listening opens us to betterment and that is not really desired. What would happen to our personal agendas that in the normal course we dare not expose to others? Listening allows seeds to be sowed in the heart which will, of course, grow and upset the status quo no end.
Here I have just brushed the subject as far as we see in our daily existences. The truth is that NOT listening is the norm; even in other more truthful environments like spirituality, ashrams and religious societies. Life is lived like a charade with many lies being promoted and practised because it suits everybody. I look at my own and the life of others around me. Believe me I am not really surprised. I don’t see anyone achieving their human aims by playing clean and fair. Lies, even evident lies are vehemently promoted and lapped up. To believe me all you need is to see some of the adverts on the TV, some of the truths propagated by religious leaders, some of the principles of schooling in practice, most of the medical principles advanced and found wanting and continued nevertheless.
Listening means peeping in corners we are really not keen on. It then insists that attention be paid, being alert and aware. Who in the name of heaven really wants all that? I am appalled at the idea that my amour proper will have to take a back seat. This wont do at all. Listening would mean throwing the science of keeping appearances in the dustbin and revealing ourselves in all our insincere nakedness to the world. Sorry this is not acceptable and that is that!
I am here to fulfill my selfish ends and am not averse to join in the drama. Once I have made my pile that will allow me to live out my life to my wishes, who would care about listening anyway?
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