We all know that our first teacher is our mother. When a
child is growing up, the difference between right and wrong is defined
by his mother and slowly by the other family members. The initial 1-5
years of upbringing are very crucial and this is the time when a child
learns the most and roots of those lessons are the deepest ones.
Every
couple is different and so is every human being. Scientifically you can
say that every pair of DNA makes a unique DNA.Every
quality which you think exists in your nature, and to which you
strongly stick to willingly or may be you are stuck with it unwillingly, has
some roots to your childhood observations of surroundings and to
some extend also your upbringing. A certain behavior is not developed
overnight, it takes years of repeated observations, analysis and
implementations in ones real life. If you think it is okay to lie once
in a while, it is because you have seen people doing it and getting away
with it. If you think it is okay to shout and be vocal about your
emotions or to just shut off the outside world, well that's because may be you were surrounded by such people.. To what
extend you engrave that habit decides whether it is going to do good or
harm to you! It could be your dearest family member or one of your best
neighborhood friend. The instinct starts building from there on. The
nature, habits and the PERCEPTIONS about things, people and how situational behaviors work around us.
Recently
over a coffee break one colleague of mine shared a very good example of
how people behave differently with different people, unknowingly making
a wrong choice for themselves. The first reason for me to start writing this blog post. Let me share it here with you, and for
me, you try giving it a thought, imagining yourself in that situation.
"Let's
say, you are having this huge, verbally ill fight with your
spouse..Your kid is sitting silently there watching this jingbang.
Suddenly your door bell rings, and it's your boss on the other side,
asking for some urgent work to be done. How do you behave??
Gave it a thought?
Well,
it's obvious, isn't it? You would behave as if nothing has happened.
Why?? Because your boss isn't the root cause of your anger and you are
supposed to maintain a good repo with him/her.
Mmm...Are you not supposed to maintain a healthy repo with your spouse, your kid??"
Well
that's a perception we generally have, that it is okay being moody as long as it is family. People even get off their work related frustrations at home more often, but to the
outside world they easily tend to put a
different face altogether. The
point here is, surprisingly we are not that worried about how people who
matter think about us, but we surely do worry about what a stranger
thinks. Such a plastic life we all are getting used to of.
That
kid sitting there, thinks it is okay to have fights. Tomorrow when
he/she grows up and has his own personal life, he might tend to do the
same. Now here, probably the other partner is not ready for this. All
he/she has seen is a peaceful and amicable communication between people, or may be a different approach to discuss things.
His/Her PERCEPTION says that shouting and fighting is unnatural..And that's how things start to change.
Not
just childhood but even the adulthood adds perceptions. It appears to
be a never ending process. The first source
of knowledge to any new exposure, is your strongest base for building a PERCEPTION in that area. Good
perceptions are GOOD but bad ones are very difficult to get away with
and they can hammer your relationships, career & YOU.
I
don't know what we can do about it. All of us come across different people, with their burdens of
different perceptions, which drive their
day to day decisions. Be it going for a small trip, starting a new
activity or taking a strategic decision, everyone has this thin layer of these 'set of
perceptions' based on which they lay their judgements, take calls, take
risks. And perceptions are not only limited to materialistic things, we
all have perceptions about people around us. Sometimes good ones and
sometimes bad ones. The good ones are the healthy ones, most of the
times, but the bad ones generally aren't.
So
as a parting note of this blog, I would request all of us to let go
off, of those negative perceptions you might be carrying about people around you,
about some societal norms, assumptions or habits , and let us give everyone
a fair new chance, at least once. Everyone & everything deserves a fair chance at life! Go for that trip you were really scare off, text that one friend of yours - you thought was really mean to you..try this new challenge, you thought you were going to fail at...just put an effort to at least re-verify that your perception towards someone or something is a reality or just something imaginary..Let tomorrow be a blank page, so that you can write a new story!
