Respect the person or position

Many of us fall in love with the position we hold in life be it in the family, community or at work. We think our position gives us status, pride and respect. While it is true that many people respect the position more than the person, but when you leave a position, you are respected only for the person you are.

It may be invaluable to realise early in life that people respect the person in you more than the position you hold. Position may come and go but the person remains forever. You may be the President of your country or the CEO of your business but tomorrow, you remain only the person behind the position.

Some of us get away with unpardonable behaviour when we are holding positions of authority. We may wield our power and get away with whatever we say or do. But as soon as we vacate the same position of power, people either ignore us or forget us.

On the other hand, if you are grounded and live a life loving everyone around you and respecting them irrespective of the position you hold, then people remember you forever. They remember the way you treated them even if they forget the position you held while you treated them that way.

Our behaviour is permanent while our positions are ephemeral. We tend to get stuck to positions and forget the person in us. We tend to believe that the position we hold will take care of us and insulate us from the repercussions of bad conduct.

While this may be partially true till we hold that position of power, it fades always as soon as we move on. People do not remember the positions we held forever. Positions are static and temporary while persons are dynamic and live their life time.

It is important for us to realise that people respect our behaviour because of the person we are. They may continue to respect us for our behaviour even if we move on from the positions of power as long as our behaviour continues to be endearing. The day we think position and power can get us everything in life and we can get away with all our actions , we may be misled.

This basic tenet of life is true for family, community, society or even organisations. We love our parents since they are caring in nature and treat us with love and dignity. We love our teachers because they have nurtured us, irrespective of our tantrums and never wielded power to guide us.

We respect colleagues at work who have always guided us and led us to behave well through their actions more than their words or positions. We tend to follow what we see in them rather than what they say or what position they hold.

Let us mould our behaviour and shape our personality to be loving, caring and endearing always, to everyone around us.

Positions will come and go but person remains the same

S Ramesh Shankar

1st August 2021

I versus We

Our world today seems to be revolving around “I”. The day we grow from “I” to “We”, we may have arrived. While it may look simple, it is possibly the most difficult and challenging transition in life. While it looks like a single alphabet to a double alphabet, it is is not as simple as that.

The first and foremost hurdle in this change process is our “ego”. Our ego prevents us to subsume the “I” in our thinking and move towards the “We”. We are worried all the time about ourselves and our family members. The first step could be to think of our community and our society at large, wherever we live.

If every individual is selfish enough to care for self and not worry about others well being, the world evolves into a cruel place to live in. The day we are able to sacrifice selfish needs to the larger good of others, our journey of transition begins.

One may wonder where this all begins. In my view, the family is the basic social unit of society, where it all begins. As parents and elders, it is our duty to inculcate the right values amongst children so that they are able to see beyond themselves always.

I remember my school days, wherein sharing our tiffin was such a source of joy. Today parents advise children not to share and think it is unhealthy for everyone. Ofcourse during the pandemic days it may be better not to share. But in normal times, sharing is caring.

Our schools and colleges also need to re look at the curriculum to promote the “We” rather than the “I”. Everyone is encouraged to excel as individuals whether in academics or otherwise. We need to possibly redesign our academic courses to promote peer learning and enabling each other to succeed.

I realise that countries which promote “We” more than “I” are better in team sports than individual games. Team spirit not only enables this crucial transition in life but also enables growth of individuals, teams, communities and societies, at large.

Even organisation cultures and performance management systems tend to promote “I” over “We”. It is time to challenge all of these and ensure that we promote team work more than individual excellence. I am not for one stating the individuals should not strive for excellence. What I am suggesting that individual brilliance should not be at the cost of others.

Lastly, as a community, society and nation also we need to promote this change. We need to enable each other to succeed every day in our lives. We need to support other families and communities to be successful. Even states need to enable each other to move forward.

The current pandemic is a great opportunity for the developed world to enable the developing world to face this crisis together. We need to remember that humanity will survive only by collective efforts and not by individual brilliance of nations.

Let us together resolve to move from”I” to “We”.

S Ramesh Shankar

10th May 2021

“Me time” versus “We time”

I got married 37 years back and live with my life partner and travelled around India and the world. One of the questions many people have asked me as how do we maintain individuality even in a harmonious partnership like ours.

I am not sure if I have perfected this art but I can say confidently that both of us have found our own paths. We are different personalities. I am an extrovert and my partner is more of an introvert. I enjoy driving, playing with gadgets and meeting people of different genres, while my spouse is the other way round.

Our ability to find “me time” and “we time” helps us strike the right balance in life. We both enjoy walking, travelling to places, yoga and music. So every day we have been going for a walk for almost three decades. We have been doing yoga together daily for more than five years. We have travelled around the country and some parts of the world and enjoyed our time together.

However, I do enjoy my “me time” exploring new gadgets and visiting business schools or engineering colleges to share my experience. On the other hand, my wife loves to learn new arts and crafts and write poems when she wants to express her emotions. This is our way of giving space to one another. Similarly, I enjoy sports, while she enjoys gardening and we are perfectly fine with each others varied interests.

We need to find ways to supporting each other in both frames. There may be times when we want to be together and there could be other times when we want to be left alone. Each of us needs to find ways and means of respecting each other’s time.

We may sometimes feel that our partner is not interested in what we want to do and that is perfectly human to feel so. Our partner may feel the same about us too. In such situations, good communication between us may help us prevent any misunderstandings.

It may be sometimes worthwhile to transition from “me” to “we” and then “us”, as we also need to remember that we are part of a bigger family and hence our ability to balance our time share between self, partner and family folks becomes important.

One of the challenges we face while juggling between me, we and us is our ability to manage time. We may at times get carried away by our own personal or joint interests and in this process may hurt our partner or other family members.

It is important to realise that “me time” is as important as “we time” to build and sustain a relationship. The ability to understand ,when and where which one is more important than the other makes one an endearing partner in life.

We need to respect others “me time” as much as we would want them to respect ours. Similarly, we need to find ways and means to have a “we time” together so that it helps us build and endure our relationship.

Let “Me” lead to “We” and also the other way around.

Lets try from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

15th May 2021