One of my seniors taught me early in my career that I should speak in “first person singular” and encourage others to do so. When he first told me so, I was perplexed as to why he was saying this. It took me sometime to digest this simple message and then internalise it.

His advise was that I should take responsibility for what I am saying and doing and hence I should speak in first person singular and never in third person. We generally tend to speak in third person and blame the world for all the wrongs we have done or are experiencing in life.

If we look a bit within, we realise that we need to take responsibility for our lives and cannot blame the world for our state of affairs. While it may be difficult to understand and assimilate this simple axiom in life, it is worth learning it as we go along in our life and career.

Today I strongly believe that my state of affairs are all because of my actions or in-actions as the case may be. If I am successful in life, I can take the credit for my hard work apart from a bit of luck favouring me. If I fail, I equally have to take the blame and not pass it on to anyone else around me.

In organisations, it is quite common to see many leaders taking the credit for their team’s success and blaming their team members for their failure. A true leader will always do the other way around. She or he will take the blame for the team’s failure and credit the success to the team.

Another interesting dimension in the organisational context is to enable employees to speak for themselves. I also learnt this simple truth from one of my seniors. He had told me that we need to encourage employees to speak for themselves. Let them come to us and ask a hundred times -“ Why I cannot be promoted ? “ or “Why my increment is low ?” . This is fine and should be encouraged. However, the moment they ask “Why I cannot be promoted when X has been promoted ?”, they should be reprimanded. We need to tell them that they have every right to speak for themselves and not for others. When they speak for others, it is gossip and that needs to be discouraged. This is the culture building in organisations. It was an invaluable lesson in my career.

This simple truth can be extended to family and life in general. We need to encourage our children to come to us and complain about issues they face themselves and not about others. The moment we are able to establish and internalise this simple truth, our life will be happier and it will be easy to deal with issues both within the family and in society in general.

We can extend this simple principle to states and even nations at large. Every state can ask the centre as to why they have got less allocation of funds or why they have not got more central projects etc ? The moment a state compares itself with another state and then demands more grants etc, it needs to be pulled up.

Life is all about taking responsibility. We need to take full ownership for our lives and be accountable for the efforts and the results will follow. If we blame the world for our failures, nobody is going to listen to us and we will continue to be a failure in life.

As in the photo above, I need to take responsibility for not only how I look but for all my actions.

Let me resolve today that I take responsibility for my life and cannot blame the world or anyone else for my success and failure.

S Ramesh Shankar

29th April 2020

I find life interesting in many of its dimensions. One of the most fascinating things for me is to observe and study human behaviour. If I do behave in a particular way, it is fine, if others do the same things it is not acceptable. Let me illustrate with some examples. If I get up late from bed, it is ok since I came back home late from a flight and I can justify it. However, if my kids get up late, I will scold them without even asking the reasons for it. Rather, I will term it as indiscipline.

This behaviour is manifest in the family, community, organisations and even in society. If I disrespect someone in the family through use of inappropriate words, it is ok as I am the head of the family. However, the same behaviour by my spouse or my siblings or kids is not acceptable and I blame them for lack of family values.

We can see a group of village elders pulling up the youth for smoking in the village square but when the elders smoke, they are disrespectful of the community norms. I can get away by having long hair or by growing a beard and justify it by some family ritual. When the same is practised by my kids, it is considered indecent.

Organisations are no different. The boss can get away using foul language with his team members. However, when one of the team members uses the same language, it is admonished. Similarly, the manager can come late to office and she has valid reasons for the same. However, when one of her team members is late, she loses her cool and reminds the team member of office etiquette and discipline.

Today, it is reflected in the behaviour of nations across the world. We see one super power bullying everyone if those countries do not toe their line. This super power can invade any country and kill anyone in the name of protecting humanity. However, when the same actions are initiated by another country in some part of the world, then this super power considers it violation of human rights, freedom and liberty.

If I go in knee deep water near a waterfall it is fine but if my kids want to do the same, I may say it may not be safe as in the photo above.

Although, I find this behaviour by individuals, communities, organisations and nations amusing, I have not been able to get to the root cause. I cannot understand as to why I tend to justify my ill behaviour by reasons beyond my imagination and find the same behaviour reprehensible when displayed by others. It is like an obese doctor advising his patient to control his diet and maintain his body mass index. It is visible but not comprehensible.

Life is a mystery and we need to discover it every day of our lives.

 

S Ramesh Shankar

 

29th January 2020

I have sometimes wondered as to “What is the definition of happiness ? ” in life. It could mean different things for different people. Some may be happy with wealth while others may be happy with good health. Some may be joyful with friends and family while others may enjoy loneliness.

Each of us can evolve our own definition of happiness. This could change from country to country, region to region and individual to individual and nothing wrong with that. After all every human being is different and has the ability to define happiness for herself or himself.

One of my favourite theories is that “Health & Happiness money cannot    buy “. We have to find ways and means to be healthy and happy at all times. Let us explore how we could be happy today. Happiness is a state of mind and attitude to life. It is not a commodity which money can buy.

I have seen people with all the wealth in the world and still unhappy. On the other hand, I have seen people who find it difficult to have two square meals a day but still are very happy. This may be possible because these people learn to be happy with nothing in life.

The art of being happy is contentment. If we learn to be happy with what we have, we may be happy with what we get in life. If we keep complaining with what we have, we will never attain happiness in life. So, the secret to happiness is to be happy with nothing more than what we have already.

One of the ways to attain contentment could be to compare ourselves with the have nots. There may be millions of people around the world and in our own country who do not have half as much as we do. But, we still remain unhappy because we tend to compare ourselves with people who have more than us.

There is nothing wrong to be ambitious in life. We all aspire to work hard, make more money and get more wealth. As long as we do that in the ethical way, it is fine. But, the day we realise that wealth may not be the source of all happiness, we may have arrived.

This realisation may come later than we think. It is easier to follow the rat race. All of us have done it or are doing it. It is difficult to be content. Contentment is a state of mind. It is our ability to be satisfied with ourselves and our belongings in absolute terms. Any relative comparison leads us to discontentment resulting in unhappiness.

Ambition can lead us to compete with ourselves. It can stretch our imagination of excellence as a journey and not as a destination. However, accumulation of wealth may not lead to happiness. It could lead to material satisfaction but not necessarily mental well being. So the secret of happiness may lie in striking the balance between wants and needs.

As in the photo above, this bird seems to be happy with nothing.

Happiness may be the art of ensuring that we work on fulfilling our needs and not our greed. As long as our want and needs are fulfilled, we may be inclined to be happy. The moment greed surpasses needs in us, it may lead to unhappiness.

Let us learn to be happy with nothing.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th December 2018