Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Life has a way of entering our lives before we have any say. We are
conceived and put out to pasture and once out there what else can we
do but say “yes”. The first few days and years we have no recollection
of but from what we can see from the miracle of life and bawling
around us, it is a time when we were carried, fed, cuddled and taken
care of. Somewhere this memory has been nagging us and we as adults
know that there is a better way to live this life.
The dream is to find the magical fountain that will give back those
days without cutting out the adult fun. The spoil sports are the other
adults. Why does it have to be that whenever people get together, the
social dynamics can get complicated?
And some do seem to find this fountain so it is worthwhile looking for
it.
If you are living for “Appearance’s sake” then you are digging a hole
which will eventually become your grave. This requires a bit of
intelligent analysis of the situation, which means also that to say yes
properly we should learn to also say no. People are selfish just as we
are and out to grab whatever they can and we should not promote this
attitude for as I would say it corrodes the soul of the receiver and
makes the giver miserable.
I really don’t think these lectures are required. Adults will never make
good teachers; there is too much of their own personal agendas
involved in their lecturing. It is the children who have the answers.
See their attitudes and their approach to life; sincere, always trying
and learning new tricks and sharing. There is “newness” in their
personal atmospheres and I feel this is the secret to it all.
Emulating them will give us the Key to the joy we are looking for and
the YES will get incorporated in our lives without trying; but I warn
you, the rest of the world will think of you as immature and unreliable
and often “coarse”, especially when you deny them something. But
then you are here to say YES to your life and not theirs! Have
courage!! The Universe is with you!!!
Nothing good to say
Out of ten people who speak about you, nine would have nothing
good to say. The one person, who has something good to say, will
say it badly. – Pascal.
Well there is definitely room for improvement in all of us. We are not
always very honest with others or ourselves and then we go to
inordinate lengths to mask the truth of our hearts; often from
ourselves too. We have funny convoluted reasons for conducting many
of our business. This saying was sent to me by a friend recently and it
speaks volumes about human nature: "Sometimes we don't do things
we want to do so that others won't know we want to do them."
Do you like to live your life your way? Then you must absolutely
cultivate the art of not listening. Don’t be fooled by all these lectures
on listening that will improve your life by making you more efficient
and bringing in more value to your existence. It is absolute baloney.
Listening never did any good to anybody. It only brings duties and
commitments and who wants any of this?
Look at this guy hogging the road or even that pedestrian walking
merrily in the centre of the road. Both have been taught and told, I
am sure often enough, to be a little more “giving” and considerate; if
not for others at least for their own selves. From their behavior you
would believe that they both acquired white hairs by standing under
the sun. Then coming down to the immediate present, no amount of
honking seems to affect them. Are they deaf? No sir, nothing of this.
They are tax payers so they have rights and the roads are for public
use; although I would keep my fingers crossed when making this
statement.
The art of not listening has some techniques that can be mastered by
anybody.
Fourth, be the nice guy. Grunt a yes sounding something and almost
certainly do your own thing unless it is blatantly against your good
health policy.
Fifth, is by changing the activity. Let us say you are watching the TV
and your partner starts speaking to you. Immediately start fluffing the
pillow with a loud noise then say sorry and then ask him to get you a
glass of water. This does require a little presence of mind but practice
makes perfect.
Sixth, just lose your temper. This will act as rumble-strips and slow
the other fellow down and even embarrass him. Take advantage of
the situation and accuse him of everything you can think of. It will not
only take care of the present situation but make him downright scared
for even daring to open his mouth in the future.
I have a relation who is very nice and when we meet he has a lot of
gossip about others; not always the good kind. So it is safe to assume
that he would be speaking of me to others too and not always in very
kind terms. This was confirmed by one of my cousin sisters one day.
After that I deliberately, somewhat slowly though, started keeping a
distance and pointedly made it clear that we are managing well
without his attention. No harm done. We are still on each other’s list
of invitees but we meet rarely. Both are quite content with this state
of affairs. I have created this chasm with many relations who had
outlived there usefulness. Every relationship dropped gives few more
kilos of peace of mind. I put all my energies in supporting and
nurturing my relationships that are happy ones.
Mostly people are brought up to be up and doing; you do, you get. In
this environment where everyone is up and about it requires a specific
state of mind to flow against the river. I used to be one of those who
would take a request personally. Later I often found all my efforts
going down the drain because the other person had changed his mind
or requirements. It is then I decided to act on anything only when
asked three times.
People will ask you a service if you are available. So the first step
towards freedom is to not make your-self available. There are a few
ground rules for this.
If you have been tuned to act and be of service then you will have to
retune yourself. Learn to keep at the back of your mind this thought:
what will others say; what will they think of me; is it legal; is it really
necessary? With all these considerations churning in your mind, you
will rarely find time or the inclination to make the first move and by
then hopefully the need to act will have passed or the situation would
have taken care of itself. If you are unable to get the hang of my
thinking here, spend time with a government functionary. You will see
what I mean and learn a few lovely pointers.