Thought 67: What defines a person

They say that some persons are born great; others become great; and greatness is thrust upon some others. Therefore, a person is not properly defined by his riches or his position in life or where he reached in his life. For instance, the son of Rockefeller or Warren Buffet is going to be rich. The son of a Tata is bound to reach a high position in life. Such persons are not to be considered great. They inherited the greatness that surrounds them .

The son of a Birla or Tata cannot help reaching higher levels of achievement – because his take off level is very high. But if an ordinary person’s son reaches high position (like Abraham Lincoln), then it is very remarkable and admirable. Abdul Kalam, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitab Bachan and Sachin Tendulkar reached the highest position in life starting from very humble beginnings. Barack Obama, the president of USA, for instance, started from a very humble beginning and reached the highest position in life through an unusual vision, a strong determination and self-effort – and hence, he should be considered as truly great. Similarly, Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, who is considered the father of engineering in India, started from very humble beginnings, overcoming several hurdles and setbacks. He became the advisor to the Mysore Maharaaja and also to the Nizam of Hyderabad. Sarvepalli Radhakrishna similarly rose to the position of the President of India. Dirubhai Ambani, who founded the Reliance company in India, started from very humble beginnings and developed the Reliance company into the largest private company in India in a matter of two decades.

Thus, a person is defined, not by where he reached, but by where he started to reach there. All these successful persons had a vision and had the determination to translate their dreams with a single minded devotion into reality. They are the role models to millions of youngsters.

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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.

The next thought is about “What a person says is not so important than what motivated him to say that”

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.

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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.

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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.

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Thought 60: Man is egocentric (Continued)

If you can control your ego, you can also control your reaction. In a controlled reaction, you send out a message as appropriate that you do react in a measured way to a certain ugly situation created by some persons. You indicate in this controlled manner that you are not willing to compromise over issues, when they are made very repugnant to you.

Most people, however, cannot control their ego – and therefore, they react instantaneously and sometimes severely or even violently. Most people are very sensitive – and excessive ego makes people excessively sensitive. Thus, egocentric persons are generally sensitive and unhappy persons.

Excessively egocentric persons think that they know everything – and what is worse, they think that all others are stupid. When a person gives this impression, people generally try to avoid him - like plague. I know a family who are excessively egocentric – and they look down on every one else with contempt and disdain. They are constantly trying to impress on you how great they are. You generally would like to avoid them but when it becomes really essential for you to talk to them, the experience is not only tiring - but most of the time, it even becomes unbearable. Consequently, such persons and families have no friends; they only have enemies.

The excessively egocentric persons also take offence quickly; and they are even quicker in abusing and hurting others based on ill or wrongly perceived insults. When you get trapped in such a situation by chance, it is prudent to withdraw quietly – preventing the already ugly situation turning more ugly. One of my friends and his wife were once caught up in this type of situation.

A close relative of the wife of a friend, who is an extremely egocentric person, started saying all sorts of bad things one day to my friend’s wife about him (my friend) – which were actually very silly and childish fabrications, provoked by prejudice and an overblown sense of ego. This lady is by nature a very gentle soul and her attempts to stop this false indictment of her husband proved to be futile. This person was virtually spitting venom at her husband - using very foul language too. This poor lady was in great agony – and she did not know how to deal with those false and fictitious allegations, which were causing her a great distress. She virtually broke down. She came to her husband narrating the whole dreadful episode – and he could see how she was making a brave but vain attempt to hold down tears, which were beginning to stream down her innocent cheeks.

He tried to calm her down. It took her a few minutes to gain her usual composure. Then, he told her nothing ever happens in this God’s world without a reason (which was his firm belief). Therefore, he believes that god sent this experience as punishment to him (and to her also) for something, which he (and she also) must have done in their earlier lives.

If this philosophy is accepted, then, this experience is an effect for a cause of which one would have no knowledge at this present time - but nevertheless it must have existed. Therefore, if one were to curse or abuse or wish bad things for this vicious person for causing this anguish to his wife, he will only be converting the effect into a new cause(!), which once again would bring its own effect to him later sometime in future. If one accepts this frightful experience on this basis, he will have no animosity against such obnoxious persons. The moral of this story is “Do not make an effect into a cause” – and this is what the spiritual wisdom of Vedaanta actually recommends.

Thus, I think that in situations, which do not involve compromising your values, it is good to be “thick-skinned” – that is, not reacting at all. What do you think?

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