Category: Emotions/Relationships

Why are we remembered on our birthday ?

I have always wondered as to why people remember you on your birthday. After all your birth day is like any other day of your life. You neither contribute more or less on that day of the year as compared to any other day. In spite of this your friends, relatives and well wishers remember you and wish you on your birthday every year.

Today is my birthday and I decided to reflect on the reasons for the same. You may be blessed to be born in a family with affectionate parents and loving siblings. This may make you a loving person to everyone in your family. This could be one reason why they may remember you.

Then the question to ask is “why do friends remember you on this day ?”. You meet people right through your life. As a kid you have friends and then as you grow up you gather more friends in school, college and at the work place. This may not be a sufficient reason for people to remember you.

Then I realised that people do not remember you because you studied with them or worked them in their life. People remember you because you touched their lives in some positive way some day in their life. A friend mentioned yesterday that she called up a distant friend to express her gratitude for helping her when she needed it the most. This act of kindness touches peoples’ lives.

We are blessed if we have been grateful to others or have been of help or support to them at some stage of their life. They remember you on your birthday because we have made a difference in their lives. Most of us are so busy with our daily routines today that we forget to express our gratitude to people who have helped us in our lives.

If we take a pause and reflect, we may realise that a small act of kindness can greatly impact the life of others. If we can take time out and call a friend or visit one just to say thank you or even just be there and have a cup of tea with them without expecting anything in return, it may do wonders to them and to us.

I may have taken years to realise this simple truth. Today I do try to call up a friend when I realise it is her or his birthday. I try to visit a friend or a relative when I realise that I can touch their lives in some positive way. Even being around unconditionally makes a difference.

I am not sure if you agree with my views. You have a right not to do so. But I appeal to you to try it and feel the difference. The positive vibes of touching people is to be felt to be believed. It is to be experienced to felt.

You could try it and let me know how you felt ?

S Ramesh Shankar

Fights

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It is quite common to end up fighting with your siblings as a kid. We all have done it and the kids of tomorrow would do it. We feel it is fully justified when we did it but a bit immature when your neighbouring kids fight with each other. Fights could be over sharing a meal or even sillier an issue than that but it does happen. It’s fun to see children fight and then end up playing together as if nothing happened.

It is funny when adults fight. The most common occurrence is between spouses. All of us who are married would have experienced it umpteen times in our own lives. Most of the time when you look back on the issue on which you end up fighting, it is quite silly. But our ego does not allow us to give in. Each of us stand by our own stance and are not willing to compromise. Only time heals the issue or sometimes a mediator becomes necessary.

Another dimension of a fight is when teams on a play ground end up fighting with each other. Everyone agrees that sport is the best way to build comradeship but when two teams end up fighting on a play field, it is not sporty. It generally starts with an argument and sometimes ends up in a fist fight or even a riot on the field. Physical injuries apart from emotional distress are the only outcomes.

The worst dimension of a fight is when it happens between communities, societies or nations. It can be over sharing of waters of a common river flowing through them. It could be over boundaries and demarcation lines between them. It could be due to failed commitments. Whatever be the issue, it starts with a small flare up and then ends up almost like a battle or a war.

The interesting aspect in all types of fights is that “Ego” of individuals is the root cause. Kids do not like to give up their space and fight for their rights. Adults never want to compromise. They are willing to give up their values to protect their ego. Communities and nations fight with each other because of a ego conflict of their political leaders. Any fight could be nipped in the bud if we are willing to “let go” of our egos.

The best example is given by kids. While they end up fighting at the drop of a pin, they are also willing to forgive and forget at the shortest possible time. Adults as individuals have more inflated egos and hence take more time and efforts to give in. Teams suffer from clash of individual egos and team prestige. It takes time and effort from more than one individual in a team to resolve conflicts between them. Nations fight on prestige and false sense of supremacy. It takes months or even years to settle an international dispute between nations.

My learning is that fights may be inevitable. But, it may be a good idea to learn from children. While it may be normal to end up with a dispute, it may need a lot of guts to give up our ego. We need to give in and be willing to compromise and move on. There is no dispute on the earth, which cannot be resolved by sitting across the table and sorting out. We need to be willing to give up our egos as individuals, teams or communities.

Fights are quite common between spouses as seen in the photo above. We may not talk for days but need to learn to resolve it between us.

Another interesting learning can be from animals. I have never seen two animals fight and never give up. After the fight is over, they move on and are willing to live together again. The most common sight is that of street dogs. They may end up in a fight over food. But as soon as that is over, they end up playing with each other and move on in their life.

It is time to learn to give up our “Ego”

S Ramesh Shankar

Hurt

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I always wonder why some people do not realise how much they hurt others by their words and deeds. Today I heard of an incident where someone’s mother was admitted in a hospital and was recovering. One of her relatives who came in to see her mother instead of encouraging and consoling her, told her unabashedly that you are wasting your money on her treatment since your mother is not going to live long.

I was shocked and dismayed even to hear this incident. First of all this relative was not a doctor. Secondly, she was neither supporting this person financially nor emotionally to treat her mother. Then, I fail to understand what pleasure a person can get to make such unforgivable statements especially to a daughter attending on her mother in a hospital. You can hurt someone unknowingly and it is forgivable but if someone hurts you knowingly what do you do ?

I do understand all of us end up hurting people around us by our words or deeds some way . We may not realise it as and when it happens. However, we do regret when we realise it and seek forgiveness from the person we have hurt or from God for our cruel behaviour. In this instance, the relative was her aunt. It is beyond my imagination to even think of why people behave this way. I can understand how deeply hurt this person may have felt.

We are brought up by our parents and they sacrifice everything in life to give us comfort and joy in life. They never think twice before spending money on you for your betterment. As we grow up, our parents get old and sometimes they do fall sick and become immobile. It is at this time we need to think of how we can serve our parents. We can never in our life time repay the non financial debt of service our parents have rendered to us. In my view, it is a sin even to think of not treating them well.

In this case, the relative who made these scandalous statements was her mother’s sibling. Her mother had been like a mother to her since the age gap between them is quite a lot and her mother had died at a young age. So instead of being grateful to her and helping the family financially or otherwise to treat her mother, this person ends up making such regrettable statements. I will never recommend that we should even make such statements for our enemies if we are human beings.

All of us are materialistic in life and we accumulate wealth during our youth to take care of ourselves in our old age. We need to realise that serving our elders is a rare opportunity God provides to some of us in our life time. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity. We need to consider it our privilege and honour to serve our parents and take care of them when they need us most.

If we think spending money on our parents or elders hospitalisation is waste of money just because they are old and immobile today, we are inhuman in thought and action. We have to realise that all of us will grow old some day and imagine our children thinking the same way and leaving you in a hospital unattended because they think spending money on your treatment is not a wise thing to do.

Some of us realise our mistakes in our life time. It is possible that some of us never realise it in this life time. Hence, I understand why the Hindu religion says that human being has seven births. This may be because God gives us six more chances to repent for our errors in life. I pray to God that all of us treat our elders with respect and dignity. We treat them the way we want to be treated by our children in the future.

Hurt is like the the shedding of the leaves by the trees during autumn. When someone hurts you, you feel barren like the trees may feel when their leaves shrug off.

Let us learn to forgive such inhuman humans and pray to God that he will bestow them with wisdom in this life or the next.

S Ramesh Shankar