Privacy Vs Secrecy – How to draw a healthy line

In a recent program, I was asked an interesting question on the distinction between privacy and secrecy in relationships and how to draw the line. How open should we be?

Firstly, in order for us to build rapport, we need to know each other. Although it’s not the only thing, it is one of the things. Rapport is a climate of trust and understanding. If we are being too secretive, then there isn’t an element of trust but an element of doubt or a fear of being hurt. When that takes over, then trust is obviously out of the window. 

Secondly, if there’s a story that’s not worth talking about, then it’s perhaps not worth remembering either. If it is worth remembering, then perhaps it’s worth giving those people the context who are impacted by our behavior as a result of this incident. Without context, we might just appear as a bunch of uptight individuals for no apparent reason. It is one thing to expect others to understand us without us saying a thing. But the question to ask ourselves is what are we doing on our part to help people understand us better. After all, it isn’t all others’ responsibility to understand us. It is our responsibility to help people understand us too. 

Everyone doesn’t need to know everything. But if it’s impacting them, then it is important that we provide them a context as context gives more meaning. Too much secrecy in close relationships come across as hiding – and hiding does not beget trust. Trust is of paramount importance in relationships. Privacy is where you keep to yourself, not because of shame, fear, or guilt. But just for some healthy boundaries which don’t concern or discomfort the other. It is something that the other person wouldn’t feel hurt, cheated, or betrayed if they get to know of it later, or from someone else.

The key is to not demand to be told, and not dominate to keep a secret. Don’t be too demanding, needy, or nosy in knowing the details of other person’s stories. Be gracious and listen to what the other person wants to say rather than insisting on listening to something that they haven’t shared. And on your part, don’t wait to a point of discomfort where the other person has to ask you for context. Be understanding in providing the context wherever necessary so that they can support you better. Ultimately people don’t hurt us because of knowing our past. People hurt us because we are open to being hurt or shamed by our past. 

All said and done, we can’t expect people to treat us with special care just because of a past story that’s already over. If each of us carries hurt from past wounds, hospitals will run out of beds and people will run out of patience. And there’s no life that has no troubles. They help us learn to be better individuals. We can’t expect others to be better while we behave at our worst because of a story from the past. A hero, and a villain, both have a past – but it is the choices they make in the present that makes the differentiating factor between them. When you romanticize your past troubles, you miss out on enjoying your present pleasures. 

Should you search for yourself?

We have access to more than what we need today. And yet we feel incomplete. We have a lot but yet, the heart searches for something. Many are in search of something, some are in search of finding out themselves, who they are! It’s a great question. Ramana Maharshi, a great Indian philosopher, and saint also said, the most important question to ask ourselves is, “Who am I?” Constantly discovering ourselves and avoiding getting too attached to any of the labels, judgments, roles, or identities that we don in life. I think it’s a powerful search. 

In the process of this search, how are you being is worth considering perhaps? If one is irritable, impatient, judgmental about the rest, this search might take a mighty long time. And it might create a lot of chaos for self and others. Are we being grateful for whatever we already have in the pursuit of what we want to find? If not, we may be completely missing the point. Without gratitude, we not only miss understanding how beautiful this life is and misunderstand people but also go further away from finding anything meaningful or worth finding. 

To find abundance, one needs to be tuned to abundance, and believe in abundance. Likewise, to find anything, you gotta appreciate and believe in it. Our subconscious mind is more powerful than anything else. It will help you find only what you believe in. If you believe in miracles, it’ll help you locate more miracles. If you believe in the devil, it will help you find more of it. If you are fearful of what you may find, if you are resistant to opening up to the truth, you might just find more masks to shy away from it. 

If you are too particular and have too many criteria on how you want to find what you want to find, then there’s an implication: 

• If you are already sure of what it is
• If you are unable to appreciate other lives and others’ efforts around you
• If you see people as a hindrance to your search
• If you feel you need something else other than what you have

You are complicating the entire process.

For a seeker who is keen, every situation, every interaction, and every person is seen as an opportunity to further their search. They are open, kind, and considerate. 

A dismissive mindset unfortunately dismisses the very thing that you are searching for from right under your nose. 

In a quest to find something that you don’t understand, know, or have, don’t be dismissive of all the people, and blessings that you already have. It might just be a regret later. All of life is designed to help us find what we need. So, we can’t wish for all of it to go away.

May you find what you are searching for, and may you cherish what you already have. 

What happens when a teacher becomes friends with students

As a student, I have experienced different kinds of teachers. Teachers who maintain a distance, teachers who are friendly, and teachers who become friends. Personally, however much a teacher has given me the freedom, I never took the liberty to become friends with them because then I might not respect their words as much as I should. Perhaps it differs from person to person. So, I have always maintained some level of respect and perhaps, for lack of a better word, a distance, because I feel my teacher is my teacher. They are higher in a certain aspect. I have had teachers who were super friendly, yet I treated them as teachers and not as friends. 

However, when I became a teacher, I don’t think I thought this through completely. I never raised that question to myself to operate with that clarity. I was a teacher but became friends too. I can’t say people took advantage of it. Because just as I did with my teachers, most of them, still saw see me as a friendly teacher than a friend. So the sanctity was maintained. Rarely, some would assume such a level of friendliness that it affected the learning relationship at times. We both took for granted my time, efforts, and skill. Only after that happened, did I pause to ask myself – should I have maintained friendliness without becoming a friend? 

My sister too asked me this question once, several years back – which really makes me think – even to date. She said, “Narmada, do you have any friends whom you do not coach or counsel?” I was surprised at the unexpected question. I was silent. Everyone, including me, took my profession more seriously than myself. My profession merged to become synonymous with me. I won’t get into whether it is good or bad. But on reflection, I found that it wasn’t healthy. People have expectations based on their idea of me as a professional rather than looking at me as a person. I was available anytime, anyone needed me. It’s of course not their problem that I was. It was mine that I took my own profession so seriously that I didn’t know when and how to draw a line. I paid heed to this pattern of mine only when some began to express their need as a sense of entitlement. That’s when the equation went out of balance to become unhealthy. 

My learning was to respect my time, my skill, and my profession. If I didn’t, others wouldn’t too. Being too available for no cost can make people be momentarily grateful, but in the long run, feel entitled as they consider themselves an ‘insider’. Students who become friends might develop an unconscious expectation or entitlement to experience the benefits of being a student while being a friend – without the responsibilities that come along with being a student. And as a friend, I might lose sight of it too and deliver more value for no value in return. That’s when gratitude, responsibility for learning, and respect for the teacher, maybe compromised; although not intentionally! 

A person who is unable to breathe values oxygen much more than the rest of us who are able to breathe with no difficulty. We don’t give oxygen masks for someone who has no difficulty in breathing right? We give it only when someone has difficulty breathing. If we simply make it a habit to keep providing oxygen masks when it is not needed, the other person forgets to do their natural job and depend on additional aids – to the extent that they may even feel a sense of entitlement to get the additional aid, otherwise there’s something wrong being done on to them. So, even good gestures can set off wrong expectations unnecessarily and create a fake sense of dependency and entitlement.

To request for something is one thing but to demand it or think that ‘I deserve it’ means I am demonstrating a sense of entitlement. As a student, one would be open to receiving whatever the teacher imparts. As a friend, one might demonstrate that sense of entitlement as if it’s their personal right. That’s when the equation completely goes off because graciousness and humility may not be present. 

I was speaking to a teacher with over 40 years of experience and was a President award winner during her times for being an outstanding teacher. She said one thing that I shall remember – She said it is important to be friendly and understanding. But it is also equally important to not become friends and rub shoulders with them because then you can’t balance the equation and emphasize the seriousness of lessons at times, like how a teacher would. Valuable input I thought. I never pondered about the difference between being friendly and being a friend, as a teacher – but now that life demanded it, it was indeed a great insight. Again, there’s no one right way or one right idea. But something that just seems to make sense for me currently – until the next idea or lesson arrives. 🙂

How to prevent rules from ruining your relationships – Part 2

Picking up from where we left in the last blog, rules can threaten the very essence of relationships and peace. However, that isn’t because the rules are bad. It is how we pursue that makes anything good or bad. Hence, we don’t need to drop all rules. But we need to learn how to not have rules at the cost of relationships. Below are a few tips for the same:

1. When faced with resistance, seek to understand the reason for it. Don’t insist or try to force a rule without understanding why is there a resistance. When you insist too much, you spark off a rebellion.

2. If a situation is too intense, give some time to diffuse the tension before you pick up a discussion. Don’t strike when it is hot. Maintain rapport!

3. Rules were created to see your loved ones happy. If they aren’t doing that, then you need to either re-look at the rules or the way you are going about them. For example, I can encourage my father to go for a walk. But not insist! If I become a nuisance asking someone to either walk, eat, sleep, drink water, or engage in any healthy behaviour, then I am responsible for creating an unhealthy atmosphere in the first place. Even healthy behavior practiced in an unhealthy environment leads to unhealthy results in reality. So, what’s the point? One might prefer a shorter but happier life, rather than a longer but miserable one. We shouldn’t make anyone’s life miserable with our rules.

4. Have rules with a room for the individual to grow, exist, and speak their mind freely, without fear.

Your rules shouldn’t be a reason for someone to avoid you. Your rules shouldn’t be a reason why people would want you to go out of the house or for them to stay out of the house. Your rules shouldn’t make people feel like a slave with no choice. Intentions may be right. But our actions shouldn’t create heartache for others. Then even the right things done for the right reasons may land up having the wrong effects. So, keep the mind healthy and the heart happy before you set out to make the body a project. Rules shouldn’t take away the joy of living.

And for that, we need to learn how to set/uphold rules with Reason, Rapport, and Respect. The 3 R’s to ensure rules work!

• Nothing should affect the dignity of a person. Reject behavior, without rejecting the person.
• Express displeasure without melodrama or abuse.
• State the importance and relevance of following a particular rule.
• Steer clear of comparisons. Each person and each situation is unique. So, understand and educate accordingly.
• Don’t try to fix people. No one needs fixing more than our own selves. If we can’t handle ourselves when others behave a particular way, then it is important we learn how to handle ourselves first.
• And lastly, keep the ego at bay. Be mindful! Avoid getting into a wild rage and creating a rampage.

Reduce the number of rules by trusting that every individual is blessed with a brain that can think. Let people make their own mistakes and learn. Facilitate the process of learning. Don’t dictate it. When you rule, you make them resistant. When you trust, you make them responsible. Empower people to make better choices by creating awareness and letting them make their own choices. Guide them without directing them. And be a compelling example without forcing or expecting them to follow. If you can be a happy example of good habits – WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO FOLLOW?

How to deal with people who do not accept when you change

Sometimes, even after you changed for the better, people will try to remind you about your past and will hold on to their image of you from the past. They find it difficult to let go of it and identify you with your new changes. That’s because they find comfort in representing you that way in their life. They have you represented as something, and themselves as something in relation to you. Now because you changed, they can’t simply change their impression because it involves changing the entire equation itself – which means – changing themselves too. Because in your old ways, they would’ve interacted or responded to you in a certain way. Now that you have changed, they have to change not just their mental map of you, but also their way of responding to you and representing you. That’s a lot of work on their end – and unless they are truly willing and flexible to make the shifts, it just feels more convenient for the moment to hold on to the old belief about you. 

What usually happens in this case, is that some people who change, feel there’s no point in them changing since some key people in their life are not recognising their change. So they go back to their old ways. Thus, proving the other person true – that their change was not for real, it was only momentary. 

However, that’s the place where if you can find your own conviction for changing and keep reassuring yourself that you are on the right path, it will greatly help. People will eventually change their perspective of you – they need time to make that shift – because it is externally driven initially. You changed because you wanted to. For them to change, it has to come from within too. So, create a compelling need for them by continuing to be the better version of you. Your efforts will never go in vain. Trust yourself and trust the universe on that. Every single moment that you are different, you are happier with yourself for sustaining the change, someone else might be inspired looking at your change, you feel more confident about yourself and hence, more peaceful and happy too! While momentarily, your efforts do not seem to get acknowledged, if you keep at it, you’ll be the leader of change!

In the meantime, avoid getting into debates or arguments, trying to convince them to acknowledge your change. The more you force, the more frustrated both parties will be. Thus, making it even more difficult for the other to acknowledge the change. Let them have their map, smile, acknowledge their perspective, and don’t be affected by it.

Also, understand that your past behaviours would have had a certain impacted on them too. And they need time to reassure themselves that this change is for real. Because they don’t want to go back to readjusting to old ways just in case you flip. It’s their fear at times, that prevents them from accepting something too quickly. And it takes time to undo what has happened and open up to new possibilities.

Now that you know what’s causing the delay, your patience and understanding in this regard could just be another feather in your cap.

How to be there for others without putting down yourself

One of the most precious pieces of advice I got when I was studying Psychology was from my professor. She used to repeatedly keep saying, “Girls, fill your love buckets first before you seek to give or get love from others”. She emphasized it often. At one level, I may have understood its importance. But it has so many connotations in so many contexts, I am beginning to realise only now.

I see people trying to be there for others because they don’t know how to be there for themselves. And later, when they don’t find the other person being grateful, they feel bad. They feel they were used, or taken for granted, or ignored because they bent backward to be there for someone else. If you do things to validate your existence, it might not happen that way. Only you can validate your existence.

Some people try to appreciate others and give gifts, trying hard to make people feel good, or flattered about themselves. Deep within themselves, they find it very hard to appreciate themselves. No amount of appreciating others will help you fill your void inside unless you learn to appreciate your own self too.

Some people really take good care of others, cooking for them, doing things for them and whatnot. But they feel empty from within. Because they never paid attention to their own body, their own needs, and how to cater to themselves. Somewhere, there was a deep desire that others should find out their needs and fulfill it without asking. Wishful thinking! If I am not ready to pay attention to my own needs, why would anyone else want to pay attention to it? If I am unable to notice the pain in my arm, no one else can feel it for me. If I express it, people might understand. If I ignore it, people might not notice either.

Some people protect others while pushing themselves under the bus. They take the blame for things they aren’t responsible for. They ‘save’ people from their own selves and reality. Excess of anything isn’t helpful. To save others from guilt, if you go on massive guilt trips yourself, the relationship is going to be thrown out of whack anyway. Neither feel guilty nor make others feel guilty. Take responsibility where needed and help others to take responsibility where required too – so that harmony is maintained and people learn healthily. (To learn more on how to do this- please watch this video).

Some people have this thinking – it is me or them. It is my needs or their needs. That’s where this dirty little term called ‘sacrifice’ creeps in and creates havoc. Anyone who believes they have sacrificed, don’t tend to feel good because they didn’t operate on win-win. They feel others owe them something. That very feeling creates a lot of ill-feeling when people don’t reciprocate. Why does it have to be this or that, you or them? Why can’t it be you and them? Why can’t we take care of ourselves and others? If you take care of yourself, you’ll be able to take care of others in much better ways. You’ll do whatever you are doing healthily and happily. That’s the best gift you can give to others.

Notice for patterns in yourself –

• When you are appreciating others, do you put down yourself?
• When you love others, do you dislike yourself?
• When you take care of others, do you ignore yourself?
• When you look up to others, do you look down at yourself?
• When someone rejects you, do you disapprove of yourself?
• When something goes wrong, do you blame yourself for everything?
• Do say ‘sorry’ too often to too many?
• Are you ever ready to forgive others but find it very hard to forgive yourself?
• If someone asks you to state 10 things that you love in yourself, does it not come easily for you?

If your answer to any of the above it true, then there are greater chances that you may be feeling bitter from within and waiting for others to change. Change doesn’t have to be outside of you. Change from within. Prioritise yourself along with everything else in life. Understand yourself. Pay attention to yourself healthily. Once you do this, you will see others’ attitudes towards you changing too. No amount of external love can fill the empty love bucket within you. If you fill it with love first, you’ll be more ready to recognise true love outside. For any of us who struggle with understanding who’s genuine and who’s not – it is mostly because our love buckets are empty from within. We can’t recognise something that we don’t have within. Once you fill it, you’ll see that you can recognise people and their intentions more accurately. An empty bucket is ready to get itself filled up by anything. Since it doesn’t have anything, it might not have an understanding of what needs to go in. A clean bucket that has super clean water will want to be filled only with super clean water again. Because that’s what it contains already. If you want true love, you gotta love yourself truly! Just that!

How to refer to the dead in ways that are healthy

Usually, when someone dies, the rest of us get uncomfortable talking about that dead person in front of their family or loved ones. We don’t want to spark off some emotions in them, hence we carefully try to avoid mentioning them or anything that’s related to them. However, should we necessarily avoid talking about them? Is that the best way to move on?

When we so carefully avoid talking about them, I have seen that their loved ones usually feel, “how can they just forget all about my father/mother/grandfather/husband/“ etc. They may feel that people have conveniently forgotten all about the deceased and may feel bad about it. Referencing them in ways that are negative or regretful is also not healthy. Saying things like,

• “If you had done this, maybe he would’ve lived” – is an absolute No-No. Once the person dies, don’t pick up any topic that makes the family feel they should’ve done something to keep them alive. Death and life are not in our hands. If my time is over, no one and nothing can give me extra life. If my time is there, no one and nothing can kill me too.
• Avoid referencing in ways of regret – such as – ‘he should’ve seen this before he left.’ Or, he died too young, he should’ve lived longer. You may feel that, but when you tell it to the family, they may feel bad about it further.
• Don’t let curiosity get the better of you and ask them questions around the death – how did they die? How exactly did it happen – questions like these will make them relive the not-okay moments many times strengthening the painful moments further.
• Sometimes we go one step further by stopping the family of the deceased from talking or recounting their old memories with them too! That goes a tad too much! They may feel they don’t have the freedom to talk about the person they love so much. One may think, “I just don’t want them to think of the past and feel bad”. But you know what, we can’t abruptly stop talking about someone who passed away. It will look weird to avoid someone who we loved and lived with for so long. It’s a life – not a paper or an issue that can be pushed under the carpet and forgotten. It’s okay to talk about them, and feel that sense of missing them – and have a tear or two briefly. It’s a process of recalling, strengthening, and letting go. The more you try to avoid this, the longer it takes to heal. Like I always say, “It’s okay to be not okay.”

Find healthy ways of referencing and representing them because we can draw strength from it. Healthy ways of referencing are talking about the good work they have done, how the deceased may have inspired you some time, their strengths, their good work, and how they may be peaceful somewhere up above, watching over us. When we say things like this, we are remembering them in healthy ways. The concerned family too might just appreciate the fact that you still care to remember the goodness of the person and celebrate their life even after they are gone. That is gratitude. Trying to spend a life coping with their death may be painful. But trying to spend a life carrying forward their legacy might be helpful.

Just because you don’t talk about them, the other person won’t forget them. They’ll still think of them. Hence, fondly remember them rather than desperately try to avoid/forget them. Beyond that one moment of death, there is an entire life of theirs to be cherished.

For more tips on what to say and what not to say in these circumstances – please refer to an earlier blog – https://narmadarao.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/when-you-dont-know-what-to-say-2/

Some people have this black hole effect unconsciously. Are you one of them?

For the purposes of this article, we are going to use this particular definition of a black hole – which refers to a place where things are lost never to be seen again.

Which, in human terms means – are you one of those who commit and forget all about it. Or anything that comes to you can be forgotten since one cannot expect you to remember and return (in case of an object), or reply/respond appropriately (in case of communication), or realize (in terms of feedback). And all of this, not because you didn’t want to. You have the best of intentions always. But you may not be paying attention to some things in a manner that matters to people.

1. This means – if you borrow something, you are very less likely to remember to return it. Not that you intend to keep it, but just that it doesn’t occur to you to return it unless asked. And sometimes, not return it even upon asking since you may have misplaced it or damaged it.

2. In terms of phone calls, emails, messages are you one of those who follow one-way traffic rules? Where you can get in touch with people whenever you want, but it doesn’t hold true the other way? Again, not that you intended it that way. But you have unconsciously become one of those who only communicate when you are open for it and might miss calls from friends and family and forget to call back too. Another way is, regardless of what they say, you mostly have the same expression/response. So, they may find you unreadable and hence be led to assume that you don’t really care or understand.

3. In terms of feedback, any feedback that comes to you – it doesn’t affect you in any way. Your shell has become too thick over the years for various reasons. So, you continue to be the same despite several reminders and feedbacks from people. So, people may get frustrated trying to communicate with you. That’s because they do not know if there’s any point to it at all since there’s no response or reaction from you at a deeper level. Every time they talk to you about it, you give the same/similar response like the previous time and continue to repeat the same thing again in the future.

The next step in either of these cases is quite self-explanatory at one level – that you lose credibility. But that’s something we all are aware of, aren’t we? There’s more to this though.

The other repercussions are,

• You may miss out on important people you love.
• You might end up being alone, not because you don’t care. But because you never explicitly communicated and showed that you truly cared.
• You may either be over-confident of yourself as you don’t remember any of the things that matter to others. So, you may not even realize you are unconsciously hurting others.
• Or, you may lose confidence in yourself since you repeatedly keep hearing from people that they don’t trust you at some level. Whenever you commit, people might laugh it off and say, “As if that will ever happen. It’s okay! I know you!”
• You may feel bad that people find it difficult to trust you. Or people misunderstand you often despite your best intentions.

Hence, it is so important to not be a black hole – which means people should never feel communication with you is a lost cause or a pointless affair. It’s necessary to be more transparent, open, communicative, and expressive. It is not others’ responsibility to understand us. It is our responsibility to make ourselves understood. Secondly, if you think you have a chance of forgetting either keep reminders or ask to be reminded by the concerned person. Give importance to what matters to others. Only if it matters to you, will you keep your word at it. And the only way you can make it matter to you is respecting and valuing what people value – especially the ones who you care about. No matter what intentions we have, if we make it painful for others, we will be left with much pain eventually!

To evaluate something, this is the quality you need to possess

And that is RESPECT for that thing or that person.

You can’t evaluate anything that you don’t respect. Because then you aren’t evaluating, you are being biased already.

Whether you are evaluating yourself, someone else, movies, situations, or anything for that matter, if you don’t have respect as the top-most value, then it is best to refrain from evaluating. Since you are evaluating to judge, not to understand, and your judgment may be detrimental.

Respect the process, respect the background, respect that there’s a lot that would have gone into creating what you see in front of you now. 

You also have to understand that your evaluation has the capacity to break someone. And hence, be mindful never to do that. If you are evaluation isn’t helping, then it is of no use really. 

When I used to watch movies in the past, I used to judge actors based on looks, on the movie based on acting and simply come to a judgment saying – “How can someone make such a bad movie.”

When I look back at all those today, I am aghast! How could I have made such harsh judgments? No one decides to make a bad movie. They put in a ton of efforts to make a great movie. But it didn’t turn out that way for various reasons – like lack of idea, understanding, skill, finances or other such things. By being so vain in judging them, I have made no better use of my own life either! How could I comment on someone’s looks? Would it be okay if someone did that to me or someone I love? Just because someone is a public personality, doesn’t mean we have the right to talk rubbish about them and pass off our entire internal poison on them through our judgments. This has been a huge learning for me – that respecting anything is most important before I set out to evaluate. 

And as I say this, I am also aware that in the process, I shouldn’t be harsh on myself. I have observed that I did that. And I understand that I can do better. So, being harmfully critical isn’t going to make me do any better. How can someone do better when they feel bitter. So take care of yourself. Understand that anything you have done was out of ignorance. Now that you know better, choose better. Likewise, empower others too. No one wakes up deciding to be terrible. We all wake up wanting to be wonderful. Let’s help each other be that!

No one can hurt my loved ones. But why?

We get irritated, angry, or protective if someone else abuses/ disrespects/ takes for granted, or even comments about the person we love. We would have done that ourselves a minute back or a day before. But that’s okay! We do it out of love. How can someone else do that? We get territorial. We have the right to abuse them – because of the privilege we have given them – to get loved by us. We have the right to ill-treat them or take them for granted because it comes from a place of love. So, it won’t affect them. But others? No way! They don’t even know this person well enough, let alone love, to be able to comment on them and get away with it.

Why do we do that? Is it because we feel guilty for abusing them that we try to make up for it by getting angry at others who do that? Since we can’t change ourselves, we try to make up for our sins by calling others, sinners? It makes us less of a sinner by doing so? It reduces the impact of our insult since we protected them against someone else?

Despite all the love, we don’t have the patience. Despite all the love, we don’t spare an extra minute to understand or explain. But we expect others to do all that with much less love and concern than we claim ourselves to have.

That’s a very strange idea of justice and redemption, isn’t it? We don’t try to become saints but get angry at others and actively call them sinners. So that in comparison to them, we appear less evil! Quite fantastic this mind of ours – we manipulate ourselves more than we manipulate anyone else ! And that manipulation, we call love!

We kid ourselves to believe that all our comments leave no negative impact since it comes from a place of love. While outsider’s comments can damage them? The big news is – Our casual comments cause more damage than any outsider’s intentional actions. Do you know why? Because of our love! They take us more seriously! An outsider’s comment, they can brush off without much thought. But an insider’s goes inside their heart directly. That’s why there’s more damage at close quarters than a war outside the house can ever cause.

It’s time we pay attention to our so-called casual comments, our mild irritation, and our loving anger, to truly see the damage we are causing. No point getting angry on outsiders when the insiders themselves fail to respect and value what they have. How can we expect someone else with half of our love, respect them more than double what we do? This could be true not just of humans, but also of our country, resources, our own selves too. We get angry at someone for commenting on us because somewhere we believe it is true, or we fear it is true. Otherwise, it wouldn’t affect us. We want others to love us, accept us, and take care of us. But we don’t do that ourselves. We abuse ourselves the most. Hence, any little thing that the outsider does, hits us like a cannonball!

The bottom line is, we can’t expect anyone outside of us to do anything that we aren’t doing ourselves. We can have a zillion reasons for what we are – but they are just excuses. We think our reasons provide a source of entitlement for ourselves to get away with murder even. But nothing can take away the effect of your actions unless you consciously change your actions. It is not tough to change provided, we stop hiding behind our reasons. The minute we say, ‘it is tough to change’, ‘anger just comes to me’ – that means we are feeling comfortable being what we are. We have made peace with ourselves for being however sluggish we are. And that is doom’s day for us! Life will never change for the better. This age-old quote never runs out of fashion – “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” Anything that we have been trying to change but couldn’t, we just haven’t wanted it strong enough. The day we want it like we can’t live another moment without it – change will naturally happen! The time and energy we spend in trying to protect others from others, if we spend in trying to protect them from ourselves, I am sure we’ll change. Won’t we?