Thought 66: What a person says is not so important than what motivated him to say that

Most people are interested in themselves; they have an agenda of their own. There is nothing wrong in this. If you do not look after your own interests, no one else will do that for you.

In the pursuit of this agenda, some people talk to you sweetly, as if they are very much interested in your welfare - while in reality, it is part of a plan to further their own interests. They flatter you directly sometimes and subtly some other times. Be wary when any one flatters you; in all probability, he wants something from you. Most people mistake these flatterers as their well-wishers and would immediately want to reward their supposedly good gesture in some way. As a rule, these are not your well-wishers – although there may be exceptions to this rule.

No one always does the right things or does a thing right. Sometimes, we do the wrong things or we do a thing wrongly. People may or may not notice this fact. Even if they notice, they do not like to tell you that you have done the wrong thing or you are doing a thing wrongly. It is not a good policy to point out the mistakes of others. First, it may offend them because their ego gets hurt – and this is not exactly the way to get endeared to them. Secondly, it does not promote your interests in any way.

Having understood that, do not also immediately react when some persons point out where you go wrong. This person probably means well – and he has your interests uppermost in his mind. He is speaking frankly and he is not overly concerned, even if you were to misunderstand him for speaking frankly.

It is against this background, I say that what people say to you is not so important - what motivated them to say that is more important. If a person points out your mistakes, either he wants to hurt you or he is genuinely interested in you. Here, a judgment is involved. Make the right judgment. If this person, in your judgment, is honest and sincere, trust him - and take his advice seriously. You do not find many sincere well-wishers of this type in this world.

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Thought 65: Live up to your potential

Right from the childhood, we have been brainwashed – by various agencies, such as parents, siblings, friends, teachers, neighbours, media, colleagues, bosses and many others. They keep telling us various things about our weaknesses but never about our strengths; they never tell you about how to get rid of weaknesses and how to reinforce your strengths. What all they generally tell us are negative things about us and our minds are filled with this kind of negative garbage. “I do not think he can cope with so much home work”. “Do not force him to study so much – it is too much load on his young mind”. “It is enough if he gets “A or B” grades in important subjects”. “He is not the kind of material to compete with the best in his class”. “Let him enjoy now. Later, he would find no time to enjoy”. “He found the politics in the office difficult to handle”. “He is not the type who can deliver”. “He breaks down under even a small stress”. “He is having domestic problems and so, leave him alone. He should not be troubled with this project right now”. “I do not think he can handle this tight schedule”. And many more such things.

We gather many negative signals like this about ourselves, which are not true at all. Once this belief gets written on the subconscious mind, you begin to think and act to conform to this belief. This is how we believe that we cannot do many things, although we can. In this process, we impose several avoidable limitations on ourselves and on our ability to think properly and on our ability to act properly. Therefore, we do not measure up to our real potential. We work far, far below our potential. We sincerely come to believe that we cannot do certain things; which is just hogwash.

As long as this garbage is lodged in your bin (mind), you hesitate; you halt; fear grips you. You do not take even minor risks. You would like to walk the beaten path, because it is safe. You do not want to explore.

Those, who are successful, have thrown this kind of garbage overboard and their minds are left free and fresh; and they are full of optimism and enthusiasm. They go out and achieve things. Mind you, they are no better than you. They are just as good or as bad as you are. But they have the power of positive thinking. They believe in themselves; they believe in their ability to gain success; they believe in their intelligence.

What is the use of having intelligence and ability if they do not work for you. Make them work for you. That is the formula for success. The successful are not really great; they are just ordinary. But they are determined to succeed and they innovate in various ways until success happens. Their life’s ruling passion is success – they do not allow anything to come in their way. These persons do not like excuses for not succeeding. They are merciless – especially, on themselves. Other’s difficulties do not bother them. They will go to some others if you give excuses. They are impatient. They are just like the flood waters. If the floods encounter a big boulder in their path, they do not stop – they either continue to flow on top of the boulder or around the boulder.

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Thought 64: Children need care

Children are special – very special. They need care. They need you to teach them – not merely school lessons, but many other things also about the world and about life. Encourage them to see a rainbow and wonder about it. Ask them to look at the night sky and admire it. Take them to see animals in a Zoo and get excited. Let them see birds and enjoy. Let them see green trees and fields - and get inspired to plant a tree on each birthday.

Teach them cleanliness. Teach them values. Teach them about god. Teach them discipline.

When they are unhappy, talk to them – and make them feel happy. Wave to children when you see them on the roads or in the shopping malls or anywhere else. They are the future – parents are the past.

The next thought is about “Live up to your potential”

Thought 63: Focusing on effects only

There is always a certain amount of bias in our judgments and that is the reality that we ignore frequently. Subjective thinking does not relate cause and effect properly. Cause and effect are correlated properly, only when the subjective bias is removed; objective thinking is essential for connecting them properly.

We react to people based on perceptions – which we falsely believe represent reality. We believe what we want to believe. We see only those things that we are looking for. Other things may also have been juxtaposed next to the things that we are looking for, but we do not see them.

We rarely see the cause and effect of any thing - even when they are obvious. We see mostly the effect. Very often, we tend to judge and sentence persons based on the effect only. It is seldom that two persons seeing an identical situation, interpret it in an identical manner. You may have a friend - call him "friend A". You think "A" is good because "A" has been sympathetic or helpful to you. Another person, say, "B", may not like "A", because, "A" has not been good to him. Thus, "A" can be both good and bad, when viewed from two different perspectives. Therefore, if some one considers a person as bad, it only reflects on their bilateral relationship - and it seldom indicates the intrinsic good or bad nature of the person. This is the essential nature of all subjective judgments that we constantly use in dealing with persons. When we think objectively, we realize, of course, the friend of an enemy need not also be our enemy.

Thus, we mostly see the effects. For most of us, the effects stand alone. Their connection to a cause is seldom a consideration. This is the cause of most of our suffering! Unfortunately, whatever we do to effects, we cannot change them. They get changed only when the cause is changed.

The next thought is about “Children need care”

Thought 62: For any decision, you need information

You are required to take decisions on trivial as well as vital matters – all through your life. Before making a decision, however, you should carefully weigh every bit of information available to you, because “your decision is only as good as the information you have”. Therefore, there is a dire need for the right information.

For instance, you need to insure your home and your household things against fire, theft and burglary. You need to insure your car, jewelry, life, too. You need medical insurance too nowadays, if you are self-employed. Which insurance company gives better deals? If you do not do the market research properly, you stand to lose a lot of money, which is a yearly recurring loss. There are any number of such matters over which you have to constantly gather information and keep it in your computer files.

If you do not want to throw away your hard earned money, then, which grocery store, for instance, should you prefer. If you pay more, as little as $ 20/- per week, it could cost you over an extra thousand dollars a year, which you can ill afford - and that is only for the groceries. There are many more such items that we need for the home on a regular basis. For the middle class, the money supply is always limited. Therefore, for them, every penny saved is a penny earned.

Where to buy a house - and from which builder. A vital decision. What car to buy? You may lose a lot of money if you are not careful. Which school for your children? A very important decision. Want to change your job? An extremely vital decision.

Which TV cable company? Which long distance telephone company? Which internet service provider? Each one of them claims that he is better than the others. Which restaurant? Which holiday place? You need to do research on these and on several other related topics. A wrong decision can be expensive - and may even have dreadful long term consequences, like the schools for the children, change of job, buying a house, and even marriage etc. I have known people who gave away their daughters in marriage to men who are already married and did not know about it.

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Thought 61: Every decision has a consequence (Continued)

A decision is actually a cause; it is the culmination of a thinking process, ending in a resolution for action. Actually, the thoughts that lead to the decisions are the first cause in the decision chain. Decisions commit us irrevocably to later events in our lives. It is unrealistic to take decisions and hope that we can escape the consequences. Most of us, however, seem to be doing precisely that - all our lives.

In our day to day living, we constantly take decisions - in our profession, about children, about our health, about education, about vacations, about shopping, about budget, about friends, about relatives and on a host of other issues. Whenever we take any of these decisions, it is important to realize that every one of these decisions commits us to the consequences, which inevitably flow out of these decisions. However, when we put our thinking apparatus on hold and take decisions mechanically, we would never realize that every thing that we experience - trivial or vital - is the result of a decision that we had taken earlier.

Some times, a decision on what appears to be a trivial matter could have a far reaching effect. We do not, for instance, invest much thought in what we eat or drink. This is done routinely. A lot of us take foods or drinks, which are known to be harmful. We do this most casually, without any thought about the consequences. We should not be eating high cholesterol foods like ice creams, eggs and butter, but we do not stop eating them. We know that when we smoke, lung cancer and heart attacks are almost certain. We do not stop smoking - not because that we do not believe the statistics on this subject. We some how hope that we will not be a part of this statistic - and escape lung cancer or heart attack.

Smoking, excessive drinking, over-eating, over-spending, indiscriminate sex with strangers with the attendant risk of Aids and other diseases, excessive anger, excessive hatred, excessive greed, not properly maintaining cars, boilers, smoke alarms and similar appliances, in the hope that they will never break down, but continue to function correctly for ever, are some more such naive behaviors.

In all these instances, we do know the consequences or we have at least a vague idea of the consequences at the back of our minds - and we do not want those consequences. But we are not prepared to do the right thing to keep away the consequences. Of course, there is no way to escape the effects, if we do not eliminate the causes.

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Thought 61: Every decision has a consequence

We know that every decision has consequences – although we may not be conscious of this rule when we make decisions. Decisions are the causes and consequences are the effects. At decision time (major decision time at least), we should weigh the possible consequences properly and make a choice for the optimal outcome. Even then, it is possible that our decisions may go wrong frequently; for, we cannot always foresee the outcome correctly. There is no way to look into the next page in life.

Thus, the cause and effect principle is highly pervasive in our lives; we see it operating all around us; and we see it operating in us also (as any medical doctor will certify). It is a fundamental principle that governs every phenomena of this universe. It governs our actions too.

The cause and effect principle has a greater impact on our personal lives - than what we can ever imagine or what we are willing to admit. Most of us in fact do not even recognize its existence, although we see it happening all around us - all the time.

The next thought is about “Every decision has a consequence (Continued)”