Story: Ram, Shyam and Hostel (Source: Google Baba)
Once upon a time, there were two very good friends (Ram and Shyam) who grew up together from their school days. After completing the studies, one of the friends (Shyam) went up to become the owner of a company while the other friend continued to work as an employee in different companies.
As the time passed, both friends lost track of each other. Once Ram was searching for a job and he saw an advertisement in the newspaper. He went there for the interview and got selected. Later when he was introduced to the owner of the company, it was none other than his friend Shyam. Since both friends met after a long gap, they celebrated the occasion and subsequently Ram started working in his friends’ company.
But Ram was always wondering about the fact that his friend became an owner of the company and he is still an employee although both started their journey together and had similar competence too.
Once Ram muster the courage to ask his friend Shyam what the difference between both of them was which has created a huge gap now. Shyam smiled and told him that the main difference between both of them was related to owning the responsibility from the very beginning.
Shyam started sharing a few incidents from college life. He told Ram that once they left the hostel for the college and on the way, they realized that the fan and tube light in the room were not switched off. I asked you to ‘let us go back to the hostel and switch off the light.’ What you told me was ‘How does it matter to us, we have already paid the money, the loss is not ours but for the hostel management.’ On that day, you went ahead to the college but I went back to the hostel to switch off the lights.
Although the incident was minor it reflected our attitude towards life. You were trying to get away from your responsibility but I owned the responsibility. These are the small incidents of life which have now created a big difference in our lives!
Moral of the story: To win and succeed in life, responsibility is so important. This is the part of being an adult and learning how to be responsible for everything.
- When someone speaks badly to us, we get hurt.
- When someone hits my car on the road, we get angry.
- When my child gets a lower grade than expected, we get disappointed.
When people (colleagues, juniors, relatives, friends, children) do not do things as per the timeline and our expectations, we get frustrated.
When we think about our behaviour, we feel justified. When we talk to people around us, they also feel that we did the right thing by feeling irritated, angry or frustrated as it is logical.
To understand whether we are on the right path or not, we prefer to talk to like-minded people who also agree with our perspective and we feel proud of our thoughts and actions!
Example: If we enjoy drinking liquor and the Doctor is suggesting we leave it immediately for our health, we prefer to find and talk to those Doctors, who are willing to justify our stand of continuing to drink as it may be good for the heart!
As long as we keep on getting the endorsement, we never think about questioning our actions or thinking about making any change.
But the day, we think that we want to make a change, the first will be to accept that.
- I made a mistake.
- I got myself hurt.
- I made myself irritated.
Once we make the first step of accepting it as my mistake and want to improve myself, the second step will be to understand that WHO is responsible for my anger, frustration, and fear. The day I accept that I created my anger, there is a possibility that I can find a solution to resolve it.
Example: When I fell ill, was it because the weather was bad or my immune power was weak?
Example: In the first scenario, you are in a bad mood. Your driver is driving your expensive car and hits another car. The possible reaction will be of anger and frustration towards the driver.
In the second scenario, you are in a good mood. Your driver is driving your expensive car and hits another car. The possible response could be that you could have driven the car carefully and do take care next time!
In both cases, you are the same person but your response to the same situation is different. It means the problem is not with the stimulus (situation) but with myself and how I am reacting to a situation.
It means I am the creator of my thoughts and feelings. I have the power to choose what I want to choose.
The following are the 3 steps in resolving any issue.
- Why change
- How to change
- WANT to change.
The first 2 steps are comparatively easier to manage and to know. The most critical is step 3, wherein the REAL question is ‘Whether I WANT to change’. The day, our ‘want’ is clear, it is very easy to implement the change. It could be anger management, waking up early in the morning, going to the gym, quitting liquor, stopping smoking, controlling time of social media binging etc.
“Wherever attention goes, energy flows and things happen.”