In the first week of December of last
year I received a question in response to an article I penned: "would
be good if a simple method could be created to inculcate it in kids"
by a reader from the Corporate World; a question asked nearly 49 days ago, asking
how can we ensure that our children get these habits ingrained in them. I had
no answer then; I still dont - but I am beginning to get closer to an answer,
which I will pen in today's write-up.... The article in question is Speaking From The Heart - 2 : SkillsRequired, Path, Pluses and Minuses....
MAKING SENSE OF THE PATH: THE BEGINNINGS
Here, when I say “The Path” I refer
to the transformation from flippant, frivolous, or double meaning, or downright
false uncaring speech to one of strong character, morals, values and absolute truth.
If we are to get to unlocking the answer to the question asked above, the first
and foremost requirement becomes understanding the transformation, and learning
lessons from; thereafter the problem gets reduced to a simple question of
drawing conceptual learnings from the experience, and charting a set of paths
{you will need multiple stratetem; humanity is diverse}…
In my case, there was always a strong value & morals conflict within
me whenever I had to lie, or be flippant or whatever, and for any reason whatsoever.
Even if it meant lying {or being economical with the truth} in Business, it
would hurt. And hurt bad. Even when I
lied, or said things / promises I didn’t mean to keep – it would hit me hard
later on, after I said it. I could not forget my words, or stop blaming myself
for not being untruthful, and called myself a coward. In the real world, you
come across many such situations – your friend / colleague calls you over – you
say yes without no intention of going; your vendor / supplier / partner negotiations
are going on – you obviously cant be open about all things. And so on and so forth.
SECTION ONE : THE INTERNAL CONFLICTS
In the previous article, I have
already laid down The Path and its travails in quite some detail; it is not an
easy path by any means. And these internal conflicts don’t make it easier – as you
start down the path, the struggle gets harder, your internal voices get
stronger; your anxiety, worry gets overpowering – as you curse yourself for
some of your decisions and statements. Earlier, lying or the rest of it never
had these problems; but now, as you move towards purity, you get ripped apart into
two. Your overpowering first voice – the voice born out of your conscious mind,
or your ego+desires+ambitions creates constant questions, while your internal voice
isn’t strong enough to cater to these questions.
The path, in my case, started on its
own; I was increasingly finding it impossible to be anything but completely
transparent, as the transformation started at a deeper subconscious level. It
took a while for me to understand the real source of my conflict – which was a
straight conflict between my actions and my internal value system – a value system
that left no space for anything except completely morality, satgun and truthfulness,
integrity. The traversing of the “apparent”
real external world which would cause me to do things, or confront me with
choices that forced me to choose options
in complete opposition to my internal value system caused intense stress. {Why
do I say apparent? Follow my blog; is the world around us real or apparent – do
think}…
SECTION TWO: NAVIGATING THE REAL
WORLD
Let us be frank – completely, brutally
honest now. We live in a world where
values are considered either old-fashioned – or people never think about
values, doing all in their power for self and family, without stopping a moment
to think of the rightness and morality of their actions, guided by self benefit,
and contained by the rule of law. Any number of scams in corporate India bear
mute testimony to this, and the fallibility of the human to succumb to material
temptation. I don’t mean all are like that; but the above cannot be denied, for
it is just the harsh unvarnished truth. Even if peope stay within the law,
their deeds and words are focused towards achieving self_benefit.
The
modern corporate relationship system
taps into this self benefit habit beautifully, by attempting to craft lovely
meaningless thingamajigs like “KRAs” that try to align employee self-benefits
to the role. This, quite apart from being a waste of resources and a drag on
productivity {as most of these aren’t thought through properly for their real long
term impact}, is also difficult to manage, as employee wants are notoriously hard
to align with corporate goals. Thus, it is a foregone conclusion that a more
meaningful, practical approach to this will certainly yield strong benefits
once employee and -er are aligned. Quite a few small companies have proven
this; the issues arise in scaling up. But I get ahead of myself; let us leave
this thought process, tantalizing though it may be, here. Why are they {KRAs} meaningless in many systems? Again, please follow
my writings – my Corporate India series will go into it in detail, analyzing why
and how following these – aah- KRAs has destroyed value for organisations, with
facts and figures. One such Case Study already penned on my blog. The question
I asked 14 years ago to my HR stands – who will measure the efficacy of these?
The
modern personal relationship system
again beautifully adjusts to this modern habit by choosing to ignore, or take
words and actions as flippant, washing over the inconsistencies. This isn’t hard;
for each person is a relationship is the precise same. Thus, the system works; it cracks apart when one person begins to operate
on a different paradigm. From the point of view of the “practical” person,
this is mystifying behaviour; for he or she doesn’t set much store by these things,
and dismisses it as small. This practical person is adjusted; the fact is that Mr
Morals-And-Values isn’t adjusted. This
person is an outlier, a person not in touch the real world. That is the hard fact.
SECTION THREE: CONCEPTUALISING THIS LEARNING
INTO A TACTICAL METHOD
We have seen in Section 1 the
internal conflicts, and the modern reality in professional and personal space
in section 2. The first learning from putting these two together is that you,
Mr or Ms or Mrs Morals-And-Values, are the odd one out. No reason to feel
either inferior, or superior; that is just
the way you are. Feeling either of these two is wrong : superior – and your
adjustment ability goes down; inferior, and your anxieties and worry goes up. The answer lies in simple acceptance of who or
what you are, and being comfortable in your skin. Your life is yours, theirs is
theirs. At this juncture, we can now proceed on finding ways to navigate the real
world without significant compromise – a subject to be dealt with later on in this Heart series.
Now,
the question asked was – how can we inculcate this in our Children? The answer becomes apparent from the entire analyses
above. The bedrock of all our actions, words, deeds is the Value-Belief system
that we all possess. The first and
non-negotiable step that all of us must take is attempt to inculcate the optimal
value system right from birth : Truth, Honesty, Integrity, Impeccable
Morality & Fairness above all else; society above self and so on. In its
place, we as a society teach uncompromising competitiveness even at the cost of
truth and fairness, which is a known and sad fact. We teach our children to be
practical, realistic – rather than be truthful etc.
I say this since the entire story for
me started in my feeling of intense discomfort internally, even when I lied
just so as not to hurt someone I loved. The next learning one has is the
abilities required to navigate the real world – acceptance, self-confidence, adaptability, internal strength to fight
the odds, tact. And the third step is a strong spiritual grounding, without
which the most important characteristics of all do not develop – resilience and resolve. Why do I say
this? Answer : in my darkest moments of self-doubt, it was my spiritual binding
that kept my resolve, as I repeatedly realized my steps and actions weren’t wrong.
I increasingly got stressed not by
external rejections – but when my actions weren’t in keeping with my values and
morals. Losses stopped mattering, but loss of values become the strongest.
I don’t claim to have arrived- this is a path for me as much as for you. I still fail; but whenever I do fail : I try
and sit up, stand, and start walking again. And that is the last learning
our children need. Can we inculcate these learnings? And the bigger question,
again asked my a reader {one of my gurus, in fact} – why should we do these
things, steps? And the automatic question that arises from navigation : what “practical”
advantages can we glean from this practice? What about Business – is it feasible
to operate in this mode in corporates {oh
yes, it is a conscious choice at later stages as I am now beginning to realise}?
These questions will be attended to in later parts of this ongoing self-introspection…
Comments
Post a Comment