Each of us have a place in our society. Each of us has a role we play. We all try our best to live up to the expectations of our role. It is like every player in a football team has a specific role to play and they try their best to play their role to the best of their ability. Life is no different. Let us look at our daily life. We see people play different roles right through the day. It could be the newspaper boy who drops your morning paper. It could be the security guard, who guards your community premises. It could be your maid, your driver or even your cook. We cannot imagine our life to be complete without each of them playing their role.

Some of us have a tendency to belittle some roles in life. Even in the professional field, some people may consider their jobs more valuable than others. This is more of perception than reality. The best example are the fingers or toes in our arms. All the fingers have the same value although may play different functions in our daily chores. But, imagine the thumb thinking that she is superior to the little finger and makes us believe so. Then we realise the value of the little finger only when it is injured in an accident and we are unable to use it for doing our routine tasks.

It is like in the age old caste system in India. Some castes considered themselves upper castes and others were considered lower in the social strata. This is more of a mindset issue. In my view all human beings irrespective of their caste are equal in every possible way. They ability to add value to society depends on their knowledge, skill and attitude rather than caste. Modernisation has proved that caste has nothing to do with the growth of the human kind. But, traditionally people belonging to the upper castes did belittle the lower castes in society. This is a more psychological limitation of the upper castes in their mind rather than a reality based on scientific facts.

I sometimes wonder why do we belittle people around us. A child sometimes ends up even belittling his mother because she may not be as educated as the kid. The child believes that being more educated gives him the right to underestimate his mother. Time and experience teaches the child that education cannot make you superior to others. It could add value to your knowledge but cannot necessarily substitute experience or hone your attitude to life.

We see this behaviour within the precincts of the organisation too. People in particular positions think that they are superior to the people doing others jobs. It is like a white collared staff thinking that he is superior to the blue collared workman. The staff does not realise that he can never make the product a workman produces ever in his life even if he tries his best. This is not because he cannot ever but does not have the skills to do the same. It is true for all professions and all roles. We may be highly qualified from the best Universities but cannot compare ourselves with someone else, who has skills we do not have.

The truth is that societies also tend to value roles differently. Every society values some roles more than others. This could be due to historic reasons or due lack of adequate awareness of the different roles. But I do believe that evolved societies respect all roles with equal reverence. This is the true reflection for human development. This can be seen in developed societies where nobody is hesitant to share what they do since every role in the community is equally respected.

We need to learn to respect every role in life. There is no justification of belittling others and then justifying it. I would say that is human limitation to belittle others. It reflects more in our inability than ability to know others and their value in society. We need to learn to respect each and every person around us and their contributions to life. This is the only we learn and grow in life.

It may be belittling to dinosaurs to compare them with humans as in the photo above.

Let us start to respect everyone around us from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

It is natural to feel bored sometimes. It happens with all of us. It could happen at work, at home or even when you are travelling. When you go through such a phase, you feel as if the clock has stopped ticking. You feel life is not interesting any more and you also wonder how to kill your time ?. I have also gone through this experience many times in my life.

We all go through boredom and find our own innovative ways to kill it. Some of us enjoy reading a book. Others find joy in writing a blog or a poem. Some others may just like to gaze through the window and admire the beauty of nature. Some listen to music and others shake their leg when time stands still for them. I feel each of us is bestowed with some unique way of killing boredom.

Some of us find it difficult to deal with boredom, while others don’t. The key to find a way is the belief that we can. If we believe, we can, we will. If we believe, we cannot, we never will. Everything in life begins with the basic belief in oneself and one’s capabilities. Many of us tend to give up even before we try. It may be a good idea to try something and accept failure even if that thing does not click. This way we will surely find ways to kill boredom.

It is also important that what clicks for you may not excite someone else. I love to listen to music when bored. My son enjoys watching movies on TV and daughter enjoys writing articles. My wife keeps weaving her words through poetry when she wants to kill boredom. So each of us in the same family may find different ways to achieve the same goal. There is nothing right or wrong about anybody’s way.

It is also interesting to note that each of us also may find unique ways at different points of time in our own lives. Even that is fine. I enjoyed listening to music and going for walks when bored. Nowadays, I enjoy writing blogs and travelling. Tomorrow, I may watch birds and enjoy the music of nature. There is nothing wrong or right in any of these activities. Each of them is by choice and what gives me most joy at a particular point of time.

Life is no different. Even at work, we can always find ways and means to kill boredom. Some young colleagues have approached me as to how I am not bored working in my chosen field for almost four decades. I tell them that every morning when I get to work, I think of doing something different and creative at work. I challenge my thoughts and those of my colleagues. It may be a good idea to challenge ideas and ways of working of everyone around us and not challenge people. This ensures that you are not creating conflicts but finding ways and means to improve our way of working every day.

Even in our personal lives, a routine life of work-home-work makes it dull and dry. It may be good idea to explore what gives you joy and then try to do the same. I travel whenever I can and explore nature , art and culture around us. I sometimes try out new things and play with gadgets. God has given each of us enough mental capacities to challenge ourselves and learn from people around us. Learning is a journey and exciting always as there is not a destination you cannot reach.

A child can teach us as to how kill boredom without much efforts as in the photo above.

It is time to be adventurous to kill boredom. We need to take risks. We need to try out new things without worrying about failure. So what if we fail. After all the best sportspersons have not won Olympic medals without failing hundreds of times in their lives. The key is to keep trying out new things all the time. The path to fun in life is variety. The road to kill boredom is not well laid out all the time. It is up to us to explore and carve the path ourselves.

Time to begin is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

I have met employees in different organisations who have shared stories about how they were hurt with the way their managers communicated with them. I used to initially think that this may be because all of us as employees do not like to hear the bad news from our managers. For eg. Who will like a negative feedback from his or her manager ? . But, I was surprised that when I dug deep into it, I found that many employees were okay with the content of the message but were upset the way it was delivered by their managers.

This made me think as to why this happens. I assume all managers are responsible and hence will be careful in preparing their messages and more so when it is a negative message. If a manager has to sit with his employee to give a performance feedback, he will prepare his content and then deliver the message. This may be true in most of the cases. But, the real impact is not content but delivery and mode of delivery.

If a manager takes her employee to a canteen and over a cup of tea and casually makes a comment that the employee has to improve his interpersonal relations and does not substantiate with examples, it could have a negative effect. In this instance, the employee is shattered both by the content and the delivery of the message. First the employee is not prepared for the feedback. Next he feels his manager has been very frivolous and insensitive in the way it was conveyed. So, the lesson learnt is delivery is as important if not more than content of the message.

The situation is no different at home. We as parents tend to convey a negative message to our kid as if we have no ownership to it. We may say your mom feels you are reckless in behaviour though I don’t agree. This can not only harm the child more than before but also create a lack of credibility of yours in the mind space of your kid. We do not realize how a child gets impacted if the message is not conveyed in the right way.

Even in a play field, a coach can motivate a player by ensuring the message is conveyed to the player in the correct manner. A coach is respected, who is not only fair but is perceived to be fair. Perception is based in real experiences of the players. If a player is dropped for a game, the coach needs to plan and deliver this bad news to the player concerned in a proper way. If this is done much before the match and the player is explained the reasons for his dropping by the coach and the captain, this message is taken in the right spirit. On the contrary, if this is conveyed in the last minute just at the start of play, the player gets demotivated.

The same thing happens in organisations too. Employees are open to feedback. I have experienced that they respect leaders who give authentic feedback. Authenticity means that there is no gap between what I say and what I do. If I say you are good at something and then do not give you an opportunity to do that thing, then I lose respect. On the contrary if I tell you that you will not be considered for this project because you do not have the skills but will be considered for the next which will match with your strengths and keep that promise, then I am respected.

Your love and affection can be experienced by the receiver as in the photo above as long as you behave affectionately.

I think it is human to realise that “how we say” something is more important than “what we say “. We are all human and we get hurt as individuals when we are conveyed a message by our family, friends, colleagues or by our manager in an inappropriate manner. Hence, we do realise it . But, it is time to convert that realisation to practise. While we have every right to feel hurt in being conveyed a message wrongly, we have an equal responsibility to ensure that we do not hurt others by similar behaviour while we convey messages to others.

Lets be human.

S Ramesh Shankar