Well I'm only 18, but I just felt like writing down some things life has taught me. These are based on my experiences with strangers, friends, best friends, relatives, pets, nature and every other thing I saw.
1) Don't help people: This WILL get you into trouble. No one appreciates help after it’s given, and you'll most probably end up getting screwed. Even if someone begs you for it, think twice before and while helping that person. And NEVER EVER help some one who doesn't ask for it. Even if it's your best friend. Worse, you might become the official "problem solver" for everyone.
2) Don't tell people the truth: NO ONE wants to hear the truth about themselves. NO ONE wants to know that they are flawed. You'll end up getting insulted and rejected.
3) Don't try to change someone: Even if it’s for the better. Let people be as they are, even if they're doing drugs or something. You can give a word or two of advice, but nothing more. You'll end up being the jerk.
4) Don't ask someone to keep your secrets: You'll lose them. Keep your secrets to yourself and they'll be safe.
5) Learn to live alone and get over stuff: This one helps a lot. Learn to help yourself, and get over people and things that hurt you. It's the most difficult thing, but it’s the best.
6) Don't blame yourself, unless it really was your fault. Think before acting or saying anything, consider the consequences of your words and actions before saying or doing them.
7) Don't trust anybody completely.
8) Don't change yourself: Unless your behavior is hurting or offending somebody, don't change it.
Keep these ideas in mind; they'll help you on the way. They sure as hell have helped me. I had to learn these the hard way.
Hadd hai dude.!! Itna negatively nahin sochte! don't be fool to exploited!
ReplyDeleteBut you should be good to everyone too. just beware of people who extract unnecessary help.
Truth and lies,
ReplyDeleteI'm really amazed you've learnt all these things so fast in life despite tremendous brainwashing from the society--"you must be good; do your duty, don't think of consequence, etc."
I'll tell you what I feel on the individual points:
1. One of the problems with helping others that you've not mentioned is that subconsciously we start expecting people to help us back in times of need. And most of the people are so vile, they don't help back! So, I'd still not absolutely recommend a blanket policy of not helping, 'cuz someday if you find out that one you didn't help was in great need, suffered greatly because of your not helping and much worse was actually a very good person, you might feel absolutely rotten from within. In my post, My morality, I've partly dealt with why for instance I'd like to help someone. And this post by another blogger and my comments on it deal with how much and who one should help. Of course, these are all personal opinions, and you may incorporate them into your outlook only if you find them convincing.
2. You can try by telling an 'innocuous' truth, and you'll come to know how accepting the person is of 'truth' that could hurt. Just once in a while, you'll come across people who'd be open about improving themselves if they value your judgement.
Plus of course, for a majority of people how politely you put your point across also matters.
3. Absolute agreement. No modification here. :)
4. Again I agree. Some people will actually keep your secrets, but I'd like to point out something else. Try to be so confident of what you do, that you don't feel like keeping anything a secret! If you feel like keeping secrets, it only means there's a part of you/your actions that you don't like. Of course, I understand, there can be certain facts that involve others and you wouldn't like them revealed. Plus, the very desire of wanting to share a secret only indicates undue emotional dependence on 'others'. Not that I've entirely overcome this desire myself, but ultimately that's the best thing to try to achieve.
5. Couldn't have agreed more. Just want to repeat it's much more difficult than however much we can imagine. But I'll show you an alternative...
...With certain chosen people (who would come closest to being worthy of being important to you), be most sincere with them, express yourself as if they're the most reliable, broadminded and understanding people. Help them as if they'd always help back. If they turn out to be otherwise, which they usually will, you don't need to feel victimized. You don't need to feel you were a fool. 'cuz foolishness is in not anticipating, not in having anticipated a loss and yet taking a weighted risk, and then having your suspicions come true. This way you'll enjoy your side of friendship. And you can secretly laugh at those people for losing out on the pure, unadulterated pleasure that you experienced in living your life of simple terms. You could laugh at their stupidity of thinking you to be stupid all along whereas the actual fact would you'd have anyway anticipated how they'd turn out. The trick's in remembering that you are not as good as they think you're, but in knowing how good you are.
ReplyDeletePoints 6, 7 and 8--nothing to add here; I absolutely agree.
I'll add a note on friendship here:
Always distinguish between mere acquaintances and friends. The former, you could've known since over a decade, and the latter maybe only for 10 days.
We don't have to call somebody our friend only on the basis of how much we interact with them and duration of acquaintance.
My idea of friendship is this:
I've some criteria/parameters in my mind, and I do a mental scoring (not that I'd actually write down somewhere) of how good a person is on a given parameter, and then there's a composite score, on the basis of which I don't decide persons to have passed or failed (as in 'friend' or 'not friend'), but I give them ranks(!)--best friend, second best friend, third..., etc. And just like how academic performance is a continuous assessment, so is the performance of a person as a friend. If I discover something new about my friend--maybe talking rudely to a subordinate, making fun of someone they'd praised on their face, or something good they did, I'd respectively deduct or add marks to their score. But the important thing here is to be always open of the possibility of our being wrong in our judgement, which is actually very difficult. And then, with refreshed scores the positions of my friends could change...
...All this sounds very tedious and funny on face of it, but that's how I've lived my life for a long time, and with acuity of observation you'll develop over time, doing all this will take fraction of a second. In fact all these things happen in real time. Like you'd be talking to your friend, and he airs an opinion which shows him in bad light, you'll immediately see his position go down before your eyes.
ReplyDeleteWhy I'm telling you this is 'cuz, I think everyone puts honesty as an important parameter on their 'scoresheet', so when you tell something to your friend after careful observation, and your friend doesn't accept it, and instead tries pointing out your mistakes, not that telling the truth is wrong or inappropriate in anyway, but that that friend no longer deserves to be your friend!
Sorry, if these comments sounded very preachy, but then your chosen topic was such that to do complete justice I'd to be as clear as possible.
All this is just my personal opinion, which you'll see altering with further experiences I get in life, and same also holds true for your opinions of 'people'. But to the extent I've seen people I agree with your conclusions.
Greater challenge, however, will lie in actually following those conclusions all the time, and maybe, painfully you'll discover, that this sort of learning, afterall, is a cyclical process! ;)
All the best, again and take care!