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Negativity and Distrust

Negativity and Distrust, these two terms are very much related to each other. Negativity leads to distrust and sometimes distrust comes first and that leads to many negative thoughts. This is a kind of reinforcing relationship in which one reinforces the other. Negativity and distrust go side by side. One of the paradoxical issues which amuse me is that, no one wants to be distrusted by others, but everybody is filled with a certain amount of negativity and distrust in him/her. If you can not trust others then how can you expect them to trust you? In my opinion a cynical person who can not trust anybody is also not trustworthy. Negative people are dangerous.

Everybody says “I can not trust anybody around me. Everybody around me is cunning and people are sufficiently selfish to make use of you. So if you want to survive in this world then you ought to be sufficiently selfish and cunning or in one word “Practical””. This is how negativity and distrust spread. Negativity is a kind of virus which proliferates itself and in a short span of time engulfs the entire society.

A question which perturbs me at this point of time is, when a person says “I can not trust anyone around me, and I have to be “Practical” to survive in this society”, then the most probable reasons behind this kind of scenario could be

• Concerned person must have been deceived on numerous occasions which made him reluctant to trust anyone,

Or

• Concerned person must have misinterpreted other’s actions, which made him disbelieve those people and hence leading to generalization of his opinion for the whole community.

So if everybody keeps on saying that “I can not trust anybody”, then who are the trust-breakers??

If you talk to the people who are classified as “trust-breakers”, it turns out that even they have the same opinion about you as well as the community. Now again we are back at square one, i.e. “whom do we classify as the trust breakers?” And what could have been the motivation for those people to break the trust of others??

In my opinion trust-breakers were not born as trust-breakers, there were some motivational forces which forced them to break the trust of others, those motivational forces were Selfishness, Insecurity, Scrutiny, Ego, high Expectations, Jealousy, Greed, Anger, short-sightedness and Materialistic Behavior. These are those destructive emotions which made people to keep their personal interests, Ego, feeling of revenge, Lack of Patience at higher priorities even at the cost of downfall of others, which made other people to distrust them. Unfortunately the destructive emotions which I have listed out are a part of human nature. Physical defects may be rectified by medical aids but these human-emotional-defects can not be rectified by medical aids, they can only be rectified by the will of the person himself. Sometimes people find these destructive emotions helpful and lucrative but this is the result of short-sightedness. These destructive emotions always lead to failure in long term. Short-term gains might lead to long-term pains. Most of the times people either remain unaware or feel themselves so comfortable with these emotions that they keep on breaking trust of others for their personal interests and blame others for their failures.

“When things go wrong, negative people start a blame game.”

People with these destructive emotions initiate distrust and negativity and other people become the victims of those. Now this is how negativity and distrust spread. People with weak integrity fall prey to the escalating “success” of such trust-breakers or their own incompetence to rise to the occasion (because they find the trust-beakers to be in majority) so they also join the band wagon. On the other hand people with strong integrity are fewer in number. They understand that negativity and distrust and other such emotions are futile and hence always condemn and protest against these things. But unfortunately in the current society a person who is cynical and looks at everything with a negative attitude is labeled as “Practical” besides being rewarded and appreciated and this is the law of nature that deeds which are rewarded, repeats themselves. In this way negativity and distrust spread.

Most of the people say that they have seen such cases of negativity and distrust and they themselves have been victims several times, so they can not trust anyone now. These kind of people generally feel that they are using their negativity and distrust in their defense because they think that people around them are always ready to rob them, but they never realize that this negativity initiates a feeling of selfishness, insecurity, greed, lack of patience, materialism in them which further makes people around them, victims. In this way negativity and distrust spread.

Materialism, Selfishness, Greed etc. further initiate many other things like Hypocrisy, Diplomacy, Cynicism etc. Materialism, leads to need based or Give-and-Take relationships which motivate people to become Hypocrites and Diplomats to gain favor of other people so that they can get work out of them. But people never realize that other people can always see through fake smiles, and can catch your negativity towards them. This kind of materialistic feeling may be useful to them in short-term, but that is not everlasting for sure. When people find and smell your materialistic behavior then either they also start behaving with you in the same way if you are useful to them or they reject you if you are not useful or they reject you because they don’t like such kind of materialistic behavior.

There are certain Laws of nature, one of which is “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” so if you are negative and do not trust anyone then you also will not be trusted by anyone. You reap what you sow, if you spread negativity then one day you will receive the same. Negative people are always in search of something flaws in everything. Their negative attitude becomes so strong that they fail to appreciate anything even if it deserves. These kinds of people are also criticized by others. Such people promote individualism because of their lack of trust. They spread negativity and create or increase voids between people, and they do not realize that the negativity which they have filled inside people around them slowly starts going even against them.

Second Law of nature is, “We do not think what we want to think, but rather our thinking is governed by our true character”. In my childhood I often used a statement “Jo Jaisa Hota Hai, Wo Vaisa Hi Sochta Hai”. But at that time I couldn’t understand the hidden real meaning of this statement. Now I realize how true this statement is. On a given situation everyone interprets and take conclusions on it according to his true character and thinking. For a same thing somebody might have a very good opinion and somebody else might have a bad opinion. Same person might seem very good to some people and bad, selfish and shrewd to others. It all depends on perspective. Nobody is born with a positive or negative attitude; it’s the cumulative effect of environment around a person and integrity, which makes his/her thinking positive or negative.

Everything in this world happens for a reason. Positive people assume a positive reason behind everything, negative people negative. If you talk to a positive person then he will assume that you want to be his friend, but if you talk to a negative person then he will assume that you are expecting something out of him and want to make your work out him. If you help a positive person then his trust and affection towards you increases, while if you help a negative person then he will think that you are doing this because you are expecting something, and he treats your help as a materialistic obligation and tries to pay it back as soon as possible. Negative people always assume a negative reason even if you are trying to help them selflessly. Negative people are always in search of opportunities when they can do something for you so that they can take it back later. Negativity reinforces materialism, which leads to need based or give and take relationships. Negative people always assume some negative reason which leads to distrust and can not ever have a good relationship with anyone. Positive people assume positive reasons, trust people, which lead to good relationships. Trust is the basic foundation of a good relationship. Diplomatic, Materialistic, Hypo-critic attitude can not lead to a good relationship. If you don’t trust people then that distrust will drift away people from you, which will ultimately lead to loneliness, unhappiness.

Third law of nature, “we attract to ourselves not what we want but what we are” (Birds of the same feather, flock together). In every community and society people of similar genre form a group. Successful people attract successful people, optimistic attracts optimists, negative minded or pessimistic attracts pessimists. Successful people discuss their ideas and experiences and try to improve, optimistic people discuss about the beauty of this world and appreciate whatever they have and how can it be increased, on the other hand negative people try to find out limitations in everything, criticize people, are always in search of something bad in people, always discuss about the limitations of the systems but never try to contribute anything to improve it, and ultimately promotes this negativity in the environment. Negative people pre-assume that everybody is selfish and bad. This is a kind of cynical thinking which promotes materialism.

Negativity is responsible for the subjectivity of correctness. Correctness is objective, it has never been subjective. That’s why most of the contradictions occur; everybody thinks that he/she is correct, and then we have to find out what is correct and what is more correct. Generally people don’t find problem in differentiating between right and wrong, but the real challenge comes when we have to differentiate between correct and more correct. Since objectivity of correctness is mentioned nowhere and correct rules are specified nowhere, then who can decide what is correct and what is not?? Now this is again one more debatable issue. Here subjectivity of correctness comes into account, since ultimate truth or correctness is nowhere specified so people consider themselves correct until they are contradicted by some more correct logic, then they mould their philosophy by the new more correct logic until that new more correct logic is contradicted by much more correct logic, but still it is not necessary that a person reaches to ultimate correctness after being contradicted for many times because the new logic which contradicted the previous logic might also be incomplete of less correct but is appearing apparently more correct under current knowledge and circumstances, but still

“Correctness is Objective, and it’s not easy to achieve correctness.”

In my opinion judgment which comes out of the conscience of a well educated person is correct. Now one more question arises, we all “call” ourselves educated but still contradictions occur, if we are educated and we are able to differentiate between correct and more correct then why do contradictions occur?? The reason is, there are two kinds of people literate and educated. A literate is a person who just knows how to read and write, but Educated is a person who doesn’t only know how to read and write but also incorporates whatever he learns from books, in his life. By following transitivity we can say that whatever given in a “good” book is correct. If there are contradictions between two persons they there two possibilities arises

• One of them is less correct and other one is more correct and the first person due to his Ego and Rigidity do not want to accept that he is wrong or,
• Both the persons are incorrect and they are fighting with their wrong misconceptions and both are trying to impose each other’s belief on each other.

Here I would like to say,

“Reason behind all the problems is Incomplete Knowledge”.

One important point which came out above is, “Ego and Rigidity are hurdles in learning. These two things blocks the way of knowledge.”

“If everyone has complete knowledge and understands the objectivity of correctness then there will be no contradictions.”

-- By Me.

There are two things Negativity and Pessimism. These two terms look very similar, but are very different from each other; there is a huge difference between being pessimistic and being negative. Negativity is thinking negatively about people, about community, about everything. Negativity is driven by superiority, personal interests, Selfishness, Insecurity, Greed, Anger, Ego, high Expectations, Lack of patience and Materialistic behavior etc and leads to distrust. On the other hand, pessimism is imagining the worst side also and be prepared for it. Sometimes pessimism is good because it gives you opportunity to imagine the worst side and be prepared, because many things are out of our control and are not determined, we can not say or pre-assume that everything will be fine and don’t do anything or be prepared for the unfavorable situations, but one should not be driven by pessimism because if you always imagine about worst situations then either you won’t try or you will be stuck in the preparation for the worst cases and that will become a cause of failure, on the same way one should also not be driven by optimism because most of the things are out of our control we can not move ahead by taking a positive assumption about them. On the other hand Negative people always scrutinize the actions of others try to find out limitations on everything, and this kind of negativity make them feel superior than others. Most of the negative people suffer from superiority complex, because they always criticize everyone and find themselves up, if you destroy everyone’s building in the town then automatically your building will be the tallest one, this is the inherent motivation for the negative people.

Pessimism is a kind of cowardice. Pessimistic people pre-assume many things like if I do this then this will happen, If I do that then that will happen, and never do anything and find them on safer side and they say that prevention is better than cure. There are two things action or inaction, and needless to explain inaction is more expensive than action in long term. If we had pre-assumed before our freedom that if we fight for freedom then these will be complicacies, we will have to struggle a lot, many people will die and so on and so forth then we wouldn’t have even tried to fight for it. Success can never be achieved with a negative attitude. Sometimes we may have to be unreasonable, because if we stuck in reasoning then we might never try.

There are three kinds of people, two are hypothetical and one is real in current world, one who is totally optimistic, one who is totally pessimistic, and last one is a combination of both. In this case totally optimistic and totally pessimistic people are hypothetical in my opinion. Third one is the person who has both pessimistic and optimistic opinions in his mind. He speculates both optimistic and pessimistic opinions in two different threads, and keeps on going with both of those two. Now on the basis of fact whether that person gives higher weight to the optimistic thread or the pessimistic thread, he is considered as optimistic or pessimistic. But one thing is sure both the extremes ends of optimism and pessimism are bad. Both optimists and pessimists contribute to this society, optimists make aero-planes and pessimists make parachutes.

Now one question which is coming to my mind at this point of time is, is it possible to have no negativity? What is the importance of negative people?? Why did god give those kind of destructive emotions to man??

Answer of these questions in my opinion are simple, in current world it is really very difficult to have no negativity, some people use their negativity for the destruction of others and others use it for their defense, but everyone has certain amount of negativity in him/her, which leads to distrust and distrust can not be a foundation of a good and healthy relationship. Actually negativity is increasing because of increasing level of corruption. Now again same question arises who is responsible for the increasing level of corruption?? It’s us and our destructive emotions. Now second question, if you are traveling on a straight road since a long time and distance, then journey will become very boring unless there are some turns and variations in the journey it will remain boring, similar concept applies to this case also, if everybody is good optimistic, “truly educated”, then life will become like we are traveling on a straight road and it will become very boring. But as we know that downfall is the final destination of every height so everything should be in control and limits.

Simplicity

Simplicity, everybody likes this word. Everybody like simple people, independent of the fact whether the people themselves are simple or not. In my opinion simplicity does not mean the simplicity of interface or simplicity of looks or simplicity of living standards, but it's simplicity of thoughts. Major thing is thoughts should be simple, if thoughts are simple then that will reflect in every dimension of life.

Why should I be simple ?? :-
In my opinion simplicity makes one's life free from tensions, peaceful, and happier. If you really want to know the importance of simplicity then have the taste of complexity J.

Why people are reluctant to be simple :-
Well I discussed about this topic with many people and found that most of the people like to interact or be with simple people, and not with the people with complex thoughts. But I found one more thing that these people are themselves not simple, their thoughts are complex and they keep on analyzing the things, scrutinizing the things unnecessarily, and keep on drawing wrong or unnecessary inferences. Some of the beliefs or questions against simplicity which I came across after having a discussion with many people are :-

• Don't you think simple people can be fooled easily ??
• Simplicity never helped anybody; if you want to survive in competitive or corporate world then you must be sufficiently shrewd.
• There is a major risk of being exploited or hurt by others to simple people.
• If you are simple then you will be odd-man-out.
• People around me are not simple then why should I be ??
• Generally there are very less friends of simple people.
• I am being hurt since a very long time, I can not trust anyone now, everybody seems to me cunning and selfish, if you do not analyze these people or scrutinize the actions of these people then there are fair chances of being hurt again.
• Simplicity !! huh .. its the most difficult thing to achieve this time in the universe.
• Conservativeness of the environment makes a person's thoughts complex.
• I have seen the extreme cases of dishonesty, cheating, diplomacy and cunningness, now things don't seem simple to me even if they are.

Factors Affecting Simplicity ..

• Negativity.
• Cynicism.
• Corruption.
• Scrutiny
• Conservativeness of environment.
• Lack of trust.
• Hypocrisy.
• Diplomacy.
• Ego.
• Expectations.
• Selfishness.
• Jealousy.
• Greed.
• Insecurity.
• Anger.
• Revenge.
• Materialistic Behavior.
  

Simplicity may have different meanings to different people, I don't know whether it is objective or not, but it has now become subjective. In my opinion if the thoughts of a person are simple, then the person is simple. But what is Simple?? Simple is the one which is free from sophistication. Lets analyze how above listed factors affect simplicity.

Negativity:-
Negativity of thoughts affects simplicity. A person with negative attitude towards life or negative attitude towards people can not be simple. Negativity initiates unnecessary threads and processes in mind which never let a person be free minded, and makes person's life sophisticated. Negative people are always disturbed and disturb others also by their actions. Negativity is one of the most important factors due to which people feel loneliness.

Cynicism:-
Cynicism is a attitude, which leads a person to think that everybody in this world is selfish and people are always driven by reasons, everybody has some reason behind his every action, nobody in this world can be trusted. This kind of cynical attitude leads to distrust and sophistication.

Corruption:-
Corruption, it is one of the important factors which affects simplicity. Corruption of environment makes people reluctant to trust other people. But the truth is we are all responsible to make the system corrupt. (See my previous post “Pragmatism and Corruption”).

Scrutinizing the things:-
Scrutinizing the things is an attitude which makes people to draw unnecessary and wrong inferences. This actually happens due to negativity. People keep on scrutinizing the things and drawing wrong conclusions from them, and assume many wrong things and then behave accordingly. This is the main reason why most of the relations become materialistic.

Conservativeness of Environment:-
Conservativeness of environment makes people to think too much on small things. Bring a fear, fear of rejection, fear of being ignored, brings lack of confidence, which makes a person to think a lot on small things.

Lack of Trust:-
Lack of trust is generally caused due to increasing the level of corruption. Corruption promotes cynicism and negativity, which in turn promotes Lack of Trust. Due to Increased corruption people are reluctant to trust each other, which makes the thought process complex.

Hypocrisy:-
Hypocrisy is the attitude in which people show those qualities to others which they do not posses. Generally hypocrites do this to gain the favor of people, but this gain is short term, when their hypocrisy is revealed to others they are rejected. The main reason behind why Love Marriages break is, Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the tool used by those people who pretend to be the “selfless” social workers, but are indirectly solving their own purposes. There are two things reputation and character, when we build a reputation which is very different from our true character, then it is called hypocrisy.

Diplomacy:-
Diplomacy occurs in two senses, positive and negative. Positive when it is used to not to hurt people, negative when it is used for the personal gains without caring about others.

Ego:-
Egoistic people are hurt very easily, just because of their fragile Ego, and this mixed with the feeling of revenge makes people dangerous. This kind of people can do anything to show them better or greater than the others or to satisfy their Ego. There is a difference between self-esteem and Ego, self-esteem mixed with high level of Expectations from people around with some feeling of revenge and anger, makes it Ego, and when those expectations are not fulfilled they show anger.

Expectations:-
In my opinion the reason behind most of our agonies are our Expectations. If we expect less than we can decease our melancholies.

Selfishness:-
Selfishness needless to explain is generated because of negativity, corruption, Ego, Lack of Trust, cynicism. Selfish people keep the personal gains on higher priority than the gains of the system or community. These kinds of people contribute a lot in making the system corrupt, they always think of the personal gains and don’t bother about the destruction or corruption of society or other people.

Jealousy:-
Jealous people can not tolerate other people around them growing. They always try to pull the “growing” people down or discourage them from doing right things and grow. These kinds of people don’t want to do hard-work and just want success by shortcut methods. Jealous people can not be loyal to anyone who is “more” than them in any respect.

Greed:-
Greed is one of the most important factors which make people corrupt. Greedy people want to earn a lot without doing much effort or by short cut methods, and being corrupt or practical provides them this facility. Corruption is increasing because it’s a high profit low risk business. People find it easy to earn money by dishonest means and by short cut methods.

Insecurity:-
Insecurity is the feeling which arises due to lack of confidence, due to fear that others will take up our place or will be more recognized than us, due to greed of more power and recognition, due to our own dishonest past-history and jealousy. This kind of feeling promotes individualism and suppresses socialism or the feeling of team work which is very much required to make bigger work more successful.

Anger:-
Anger brings the worst of a person in front. During the phase of anger a person loses his self control and does everything without thinking anything just to satisfy his Ego or feeling of revenge, which later on creates many other problems. Anger occurs due to Lack of Patience, High EGO, feeling of revenge etc.

Revenge:-
Revenge is the feeling which leads a person to think or cater to his personal interest more rather than the interests of the whole community. Feeling of revenge makes a persons life miserable. (For more: my post -> “Forgive and Forget …”).

Materialistic Behavior:-
Materialistic behavior gives more priority to material rather than anything else. It involves the behavior in which a person considers everybody as a commodity, and treats him/her a tool or a material to use. These kind of people interacts with only those people which may be useful to them, and don’t care about those who are not. They believe in Give and Take relations only; they don’t do anything for anyone, for free. They just go by what their brain dictates. Generally these people keep themselves behind a strong mask, to hide their vulnerabilities and weaknesses from others, and exploit other’s weaknesses and make use of their strengths.

Characteristics needed to be simple …

• Strong Mind-ness.
• Detachment but NOT indifference.
• Sensibility
• Good Understanding
• Courage.
• Patience.
• Open Mindedness.
• Fewer Expectations from people around.
• Lesser Egos.
• Farsightedness.
• Honesty and Strong Integrity.
• Hard Work.
• Independence.
• Optimism
• Feeling of Forgiveness
• Acceptance and Trust.
• Firmness.
• Unconditional Love All Attitude.

Strong Mindedness:-
Strong mind-ness gives the ability to a person to survive happily in hard times, to face the bitter situations with courage, to solve his problems by his own, not to be distracted easily by “emotional pulls”. One should not be driven by emotions, as said “Bhavnaon par vivek ka ankush to hona hi chahiye…”.

Detachment but Not Indifference:-
Detachment means being free from materialistic attractions and Indifference means a don’t care attitude, in which you don’t care whatever is happening around you. Indifference is a kind of selfishness, in which a person doesn’t bother about anything around him and he bothers only when he becomes the victim.

Whereas Detachment is the attitude in which the person “be in the world, but is not of it”. It means that you have open mind to everything but attached to nothing. This does not mean that you have to run away from your family, society, duties and responsibilities and be less sensitive, if you do this then this is indifference.

Now the natural question which arises in one’s mind is, why do I need to be detached ?? Answer is simple, “to be free from Emotional Pulls”, which always distracts a person from his/her goal.

Sensibility:-
A sensible person is the one who does everything sensibly. There is a difference between knowing what is right and doing what is right, a person who does what is right is sensible.

Good Understanding:-
Good Understanding involves looking at the situations with a broader perspective, with the perspective of all the people involved in the situation, and accepting the mistakes if we have done any and leaning from those mistakes.

Courage:-
Courage is living by one’s own values. It is moving forward with the belief that your actions are worth while. There are many dimensions of courage:-
Courage to face reality, courage to show grace in victory, courage to maintain honor in defeat, courage to learn, courage to confront, courage to be confronted, courage to show anger, courage to apologize, courage to challenge our false convictions, courage to speak out, courage to listen, courage to forgive, courage to face rejection.

Patience:-
There is a Chinese proverb; one moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. Patience gives you opportunity to think again what you are going to do, what are you actually doing and what will be the consequences of your actions. Sometimes actions of people around us make us assume something wrong about them, and we loose our temper and take wrong steps against concerned people, which ultimately messes up the situation. An intelligent step in such cases is to have patience and talk to the concerned person directly and clarify the wrong assumptions instead of showing anger. Anger is never a solution; there is nothing which can not be negotiated, but negotiation requires patience.

Open Mindedness:-
Open mindedness provides an unbiased attitude. An open mind is receptive to different ideas and opinions. It gives better understanding and acceptance of the situation and people as they are. It gives an opportunity to change, and changes are very much required to be with time, to loose conservativeness, to not to think much on small things and ultimately to be simple.

Fewer Expectations from people around:-
In my opinion Expectations from people around is one of the very strong reasons for all melancholies. Yes its true that its not possible to not to expect anything from people around, because when we live in society then automatically we start expecting something from them, but level of those expectations should not be that much, that it hurts, if those expectations are not fulfilled.

Fewer Egos:-
Fragile Ego leads to defilement in mind, anger, and feeling of revenge, feeling to dominate, feeling to win on any cost where winning becomes a possession. People with fragile ego are generally vulnerable as well dangerous to others. They are hurt very easily and as a feeling of revenge try to hurt people. Fragile Ego generally disturbs person and never let him/her free minded. Generally power (power in terms of money, power in terms of position), lack of patience, high expectations, reluctance to understand the situation, feeling of superiority, generates Ego.

Farsightedness:-
Farsightedness gives an opportunity to see the long term pain due to short term gain. It allows us to predict the possible consequences of our current action in future. Farsightedness generates a fear in people with weak integrity and they pretend to be honest to minimize the loss, on the other hand it generates confidence and motivation in people with strong integrity.

Honesty and Strong Integrity:-
Honesty gives confidence, confidence of being right. Honesty contributes a lot in achieving simplicity; if you are not honest then you can not be free minded and the “success” achieved though dishonest means is also short-term. Dishonesty is actually the result of shortsightedness; people generally give more priority to short term gain rather than long term pain and adopt dishonest means.

Strong Integrity is a quality of being whole or undivided. A person with strong integrity never compromises for his morals on any condition. (For more … read my previous post Pragmatism and Corruption).

Hard Work:-
Hard work is must on the way of honesty. Most of the people are reluctant to do hard-work and want success by short cut methods, but success achieved through shortcut methods or by dishonest means is also short term. Honesty and hard-work are directly proportional to each other.

Independence:-
Independence has many dimension, Independence to choose, Independence to think, Independence to speak, and other physical independences. Dependence on anybody in a limit is OK, but over-dependence is a kind of paralysis which makes one reluctant to work.

Optimism:-
Optimism is the most important characteristic which is required for simple living in my opinion. Optimism leads to the positive attitude towards the life. Optimism leads to greater rate of learning, in which a person learns even from his mistakes and losses. Optimism gives a perspective in which person does not consider his hard times as his fate but an examination to test his capabilities. Optimism keeps negativity away and let people to search for good in people, rather than bad or mistakes. Optimism makes people more lively and happy.

Feeling of Forgiveness:-
Feeling of forgiveness is must for healthy and friendly relationship. I have seen people burning in feeling of revenge which always disturbs them. Feeling of revenge is actually generated due to high Ego, Expectation, anger, reluctance to understand the complete situation and high distrust. One of my most favorite quotes are, “Sometime things messes up in such a way that its better to forget and forgive the concerned people rather than to find a solution.”. (For more … read my article “Forgive and Forget” ..).

Acceptance and Trust:-
Due to increasing corruption level and cynicism generally people are reluctant to trust each other which ultimately affect simplicity. While trusting people around us we expect many things from them, that they will care our emotions and will not exploit them, they will not spread your personal things to others; they will not ostracize you because of our background, concerns, problems and mistakes. Well I feel if you are strong minded then it would be difficult for others to exploit your emotions or make use of you; If you are straightforward or are not diplomatic then you won’t have any fear of leakage of information and if you are among sensible and understanding people then they definitely won’t ostracize you just because of your background, concerns or problems. Generally people do not discuss their emotions with anyone because they are afraid of being it to be exploited. These kinds of people keep themselves behind a strong mask to hide their vulnerabilities and feel themselves strong. But in my opinion this is a kind of cowardice, in this way you are not strong, you are trying to hide your weaknesses, instead of making your weak parts strong. Real courage is when you don’t have any fear of exploitation of any of your emotion, weakness or anything and you are ready to discuss anything with anyone, and if people try to exploit them then you are fully prepared and face those situations with courage and those things doesn’t affect you. I have seen people who keep on analyzing other people around them and trying to find out whether the people around them are trustworthy or not, but if you are really “strong” as I described then you won’t need to analyze anyone, you will be able to accept people as they are, this kind of life will be full of courage and confidence. So,

“Be fearless; Fearlessness is the message of Upanishads” – Swami Vivekananda.

This is of fearless life will make you more honest, you will not need to be diplomatic to hide anything, you will face the situations with courage, and will be liked by most of the people around you.

Firmness:-
To be firm on our ideals, views and morals is very much required. This kind of firmness requires strong integrity. If we are blown by the air surrounding corrupt people, then it implies that our integrity is weak.

Unconditional Love All Attitude:-
At last in my opinion LOVE is the solution of all the problems. Unconditional Love takes away the feeling of insecurity. When you are fearless, and accept everyone as he/she is, then you stop categorizing the people around you in categories like “Trustworthy” and “Non-Trustworthy”, everyone seems you to be equal, and you start loving everyone. This kind of Love all attitude gives you perspective like earth is really a place to live and its no more less than heaven. Believe me heaven and hell both are here only on earth, it just depends on us what we choose.

In the end I would like to say that the phases of negativity, distrust, cynicism, selfishness, jealousy, and other complexities comes in everyone’s life, but one who come up from all these and still trust people around, avoids negativity, has patience and other characteristics as described, achieves simplicity. In the end I would say …

“Simplicity is the peak of all complexities.”

Pragmatism and Corruption

Pragmatism means practicality, well almost all of us are familiar with this term, in my opinion there is no absolute definition of this term, the interpretation taken by people of this term is, if you are the part of the “system” or if you are making use of weak elements of the system then you are practical otherwise not. It may be possible that you are being “practical”, because you have no option left with you instead of being “practical”. Aren’t we hiding the reality that we are equally contributing and promoting corruption or cynicism in the cover of being practical??

The definition of honesty has been changed,

A person who does the job by taking the bribe is honest.

A person who does not do the job in spite of taking the bribe, is dishonest.

A person who does the job without taking the bribe is merely a fool.

On the other hand,

A person who gets his work done easily by giving the bribe is practical.

A person who gets his work done by many difficulties and by a sufficient amount of delay, but without giving the bribe, is a fool.

If we take the concept of pragmatism in our society then

A person who never trusts anyone in the society and just treats everybody either a commodity to use or a parasite of no use is “practical”. Or if you metamorphose yourself in the diplomatic or hypocrite society into the same, then you are practical.

On the other hand,

A person, who lives his life simply on some moral values, honesty, trust and love, will be odd-man-out, will be called a fool, and will be either exploited or rejected by the “practical” people of the society.

And we call it Pragmatism; we just give a statement in our favor that “you have to be practical, if you want to survive in the society”. Is it really practicality or our cowardice that we are unable to fight against the corruption and are succumbing to the corrupt system??

Some of the points or arguments which people generally give in favor of being “practical”.

• People around me are sufficiently “practical”, if I am not then I will be either exploited or rejected by the “practical” people of the society.
• It is not possible to change the system, if you want to really survive in the system then you will have to become the part of it.
• I don’t do anything wrong with anyone, and if I am replaced with the corrupt elements of the system or if I get power, then I will not do anything wrong and will try to decrease corruption, but in my position I am helpless, I have to be “practical”.
• In today’s life it is very easy to talk idealistically but very difficult to be “practical”.
• If you want to live your life happily without any kind of torment, then be “practical”.
• I don’t do anything wrong with anyone, but I don’t trust anyone. I am quite pragmatic and I use my pragmatism in my defense from the evil society.
• If you want to grow quickly or want to increase your “success” rate then be practical.
• Idealistic people always fail in current society or they get success after a big struggle.
• I have to be “practical” because I am in “need” and my needs can not be fulfilled by following my ideals.
• I want “power” on any cost, without being “practical” and “cynical” it is not possible.
• I can not tolerate people around me “growing”, I too want to grow with same rate, for that I will do whatever I can do.

Corruption is increasing because it is a low risk high profit business, which in turn in increasing cynicism. In our society or country being corrupt or cynical or “practical” is rewarded or appreciated. And it’s the universal truth that the thing which is rewarded or appreciated is repeated. So when the reward is more, risk is less and profit is high, it encourages people to become corrupt or cynical. On the other hand, for the honest people who want to fight against corruption or do not want to loose their identity, it becomes a high risk, low profit business, they stand firm on their views for some time but when they find themselves weak and helpless they succumb to the system and become the part of it. Now the question is who is making these honest people to succumb to system?? It’s us, our society who appreciate and reward corrupt and discourages honest people.

All of us like simplicity and want trust in each other, but we all are lacking this thing. We say that people around me are not good and we can not trust anyone, but if you ask other people near around you about their opinion then they will also have the same opinion about you and the system, that they can not trust any one and people around them are not good. Who is the originator of this distrust and cynicism?? And the answer is simple we are all are equally contributing in making the system corrupt. We are assuming something and doing something, we need to change our perspective. It’s our ignorance and tolerance towards cynicism and corruption which is increasing it. Unless we are not part of solution, then we ourselves are the problem.

Condition in our society and country can be compared with a “rat” race in which every “rat” to go ahead is not making his own effort but is pulling the tail of the “rat” in front of him, to pull him back and to make himself ahead, due to which none of the “rats” are achieving the goal, which is ultimately leading to the degradation of complete society and country. The main reasons behind this are Inferiority Complex and Jealousy. People don’t want to make their own efforts to win the race but are pulling others back so that they go ahead. But it is the true that the “success” achieved through short-cuts and by dishonest means is also short term, on the other hand success achieved through honest means and by following ideals is long term. But the way of honesty will require struggle, hard work, and may be confronted by opposition of people but the success achieved by this way will be enduring and the person will have a good self confidence. The only thing which discourages people from being honest is the struggle and hard work, because people think that they can achieve the same goals by easier, short and dishonest means then why to do hard work ?? This is the result of short-sightedness, people don’t see the long term consequences of their movements, they just want the “success” on any cost, without the fear that they might be loosing the trust and credibility of other people, which is very much required in long term business, and good relationships. Trust and credibility are the only two things which are responsible for a good relationship. Trust and credibility leads to Team Work, while distrust and dishonesty leads to individualism, cynicism, materialism, and contract based relationships in which two person keep on working together till the time they both are getting benefited. .

People are becoming the part of the system because of two reasons Greed, and Need. Many people who are in need, find themselves helpless in front of the system, either do not have courage to fight against the system or do not have time to indulge in the complexities of the system due to their needs, succumb to the system and indulge in bribery, dishonest means and cynicism. While on the other hand people who become the part of the system because of Greed are worse. It is their Greed, Greed for power, Greed for Money, and Greed for Position, which encourages them to follow dishonest means and to follow the low-risk, high-profit strategy by becoming the part of the system.

It is true that to change the system you have to be the part of the system, but people who be the part of the system to change the system, either become permanent part of it or succumb to system either due to the fear of corrupt elements of the system or they loose patience. It is not the responsibility of one man to change the system, we all must do something or should contribute in changing the system. We all have to be the part of the solution.

Almost all of us have right aim in the life but most of fail to press the trigger. There is a difference between knowing what is right and to do what is right. There is no utility of plan without action. There are two things Action and Inaction and you decide what is more expensive?? Remember always that honesty and hard work are directly proportional to each other, and there is no substitute of hard work on the way of honesty. Success achieved through honesty is enduring. All the good companies, good managers, and good decision makers are successful because they stick to their values and never compromise their values for anyone.

Forgive and Forget ...

I have heard people saying "Forget and Forgive ..", but in my opinion it should be changed to "Forgive and Forget ..", because unless we forgive it is really difficult to forget.

Questions against "Forgive and Forget ..."

• Does it mean that we should keep on forgiving the people and forgetting the things, inspite of what they have done to us ??
• Isn't it difficult to forget those past insults and pieces of muds which were thrown at us without any reason ??
• Won't we be considered a coward by those people who are responsible for the past insults if we forgive them without showing any kind of anger ??
• Aren't we encouraging the people by forgiving and forgetting to repeat the wrong things which they have already done ??
  
• Are we trying to hide our cowardness by saying we "Forgive and Forget .." ??
• Won't it decrease the feeling of competition or to win ?? or won't it hurdle our growth ?? if we keep on forgetting the things and keep on forgiving the people ..

Why people are reluctant to Forgive and Forget ..

If i ask you a question that what will give you more relief, a bombarding revenge or forgiveness, then i am sure that i am gonna have the first option ticked by most of the people. OK then lets analyze, why people feel hurt and are reluctant to forgive and forget ....

• I expected "this" from freinds but they did not do that ...
• He ignored me, he did not talk to me nicely, he abused me, he insulted me ..
• I trusted him too much and let him know my strenghts and weaknesses but instead of being my good freind he exploited those weaknesses and made use of my strenghts...
• He is very cunning and can't forgive and forget his cunningness...
• There are people who are inherently evil, and they are despicable. No forgetting will ever change that.
• Don't cross me and i won't cross you, but ifyou do cross me then watch out !!
• You do not deserve any kindness, compassion or forgiveness for what you have done to me. I will see to it that you never ablr to forget it.
  
• I resent everyone who has hurt me, and I beIieve that this makes me a stronger person so that I will not be hurt again.
  
• Anyone who could treat another person that way is undeserving of being forgiven, loved, or cared for.

Meaning of "Forgive and Forget..."

I remember one statement given by Bheeshm in Mahabharath, "Daya usi ko dikhaali chaahiye jismein dand dene ki shakti ho ..". Now if we consider this statement then two situation arises, if you are capable enough and are in condition to take revenge of all your past insults and contadictions and still if you are forgiving then that is an act of patience or an act of maintaing peach because you don't want to increase your tensions and myseries by indulging in those activities, but if you are not capable enough or are not in condition to take revenge of your past insults, if then you are forgiving then that would be a kind of compromise with the situation. Nowdays when everybody is well capable so there is no point of capability and uncapability, it means everybody is capable of taking his/her revenge, but is it really good to burn in the feeling of revenge ?? So if we forgive and forget then, we can say that we are being selfish by forgiving ...

Forgiveness if a selfish act but it gives immence benefit to the person who forgives.

Yes its true, for all who forgive. Instead of burning in the feeling of revenge which is gonna be a hurdle in your future endeavours, its better to forgive. But is it really possible ?? Suppose you have forgiven a person for whatever he has done to you, but if you get a chance in future to take your revenge then will you let that chance go ??? Forgiveness doesn't mean just suspension of the feeling of revenge for some time or till the time you get a good chance to take yout revenge. We are not ROBOTS who can pre-empt any process which is consumig a lot of resources till the time when it is needed. If we have feeling of revenge then that is really gonna consume a lot of enery. Forgiveness means to really forgive, to love that person again whom you are forgiving and to forget whatever he did. Unless you forgive you can not forget, and if you don't forget then those past wounds will remain fresh and will keep on consuming a lot of energy, and the feeling of revenge will remain alive which will disturb you, and that resentment will make your life miserable, and due to those feelings you can not concentrate on your goals which will lead of the failure in all then future endeavours. The ultimate aim of man's life is personal and spiritual growth. If we let our past wounds consume our energy and keep on increasing our malencholes then we can not grow. Those who don't forget keep on taking the poison of revenge and expect others to die, and others keep on living their lives happily.

If you want to love everyone, then you should learn to forgive.

HEALTHY love relationships are not possible without forgiveness!. It is really very difficult to live with any kind of defilement in your mind for anybody. Love is the solution of all the problems.

Simply identify the situation to be forgiven and ask yourself: "Am I willing to waste my energy further on this matter?" If the answer is "No," then that's it! All is forgiven.

Forgiveness is an act of the imagination. It dares you to imagine a better future, one that is based on the blessed possibility that your hurt will not be the final word on the matter. It challenges you to give up your destructive thoughts about the situation and to believe in the possibility of a better future. It builds confidence that you can survive the pain and grow from it.

When you feel that forgiveness is necessary, do not forgive for "their" sake. Do it for yourself! It would be great if they would come to you and ask forgiveness but you must accept the fact that some people will never do that. That is their choice. Don't ever expect them to come to you and ask for forgiveness.

To forgive means to "give up", to let go. It also means to restore oneself to basic goodness and health. When we forgive, we are willing to give up resentment, revenge and obsession. We are willing to restore faith not only in ourselves, but in life itself. The inability or unwillingness to do this, causes harm in the one who is holding onto the anger.

Sometimes we feel hurt because of our Expectaions and our Ego, like "He is did not talk to me nicely ...", "He did not behave accoring to my expectations...", "he abused me ...", "He insulted me .." .. etc. In my opinion if you feel hurt because of these things then you are vulnerable to others, its very easy for others to hurt you. Think again who is responsible for your hurt in such kind of cases ?? Its very easy to blame others for your unnessecary ego and expectations. Is it really good to expect something from someone or is it really good to have Ego ?? Ok its really not pacticle to have no ego and no Expectations from anyone, but can't we try to control it ??

Always Remember : There is nothing so bad that cannot be forgiven. Nothing !

What happens due to lack of forgiveness :-

• Continuously being hurt with pain and suffering going unresolved.
• Unresolved guilt and remorse for offenses committed.
• Chronically seeking revenge and paybacks from one another.
• Being caught up in unresolved anger and bitterness.
• Defensive, self-protective, and distant behavior.
• Blaming, negative and non-growth oriented behavior.
• Being stuck in a battlefield stockpiled for future offensive attacks.
• Being lost in a festering wound that never realizes the revitalization of healing.
• Secretive and non-communicative behavior.
• Fear over making a mistake or of having the mistake revealed.
• Being overwhelmed by fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of non-approval, low self-esteem, fear of conflict.
• High stress.
• Lack of trust, and due to lack of trust you feel alone, none seems to you yours.

UnEXamined life is not worth living

UnExamined life, as the phrase itself says, it means the life without analysis, without observing what we are doing, what we have done, and without knowing what we are going to do. This life may be considered as the life of a dead body or zombie, which is only driven by whatever the situation dictates, and such kind of people succumbs to the surrounding circumstances.

Analysis and intro inspection are the two most important parts of life. He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it. In my opinion the purpose of human life is personal and spiritual growth, we are unable to grow toward greater understanding of our true nature unless we take time to examine and reflect upon our life.

Examining our life reveals patterns of behavior. Deeper contemplation yields understanding of the subconscious programming, the powerful mental software that runs our life. Unless we become aware of these patterns, much of our life is unconscious repetition.

We all have blind spots. Sometimes when I examine a chronic problem in my life, I have that unsettling feeling that I must be missing something, but I can't quite see what it is. We try to examine ourselves, but none of us can see our own back side (our "shadow"). That's why Socrates' method of self-examination included an essential element that became known as "Socratic" dialogue. Dialoguing with a close friend, a spouse, a skilled psychotherapist or spiritual adviser helps reveal those blind spots we cannot see by ourselves.

Self verification or intro inspection are very important part of life, for example i am used to go markets frequently and i spend money without any kind of accounts how much i am spending. It happened many times that after spending too much money i repented, but due to lack of self examination i did not try second time to reduce my extravagant expenses and i again repented. Due to self examination we do the same mistake again.

There is one more example; this is related to my academics. I had a low CGPA in my first year, and this is still the same, this is just because of lack of self examination. I did not try to examine the mistakes which i did and kept on doing the same, in next semesters too, and that is the only reason for my LOW CGPA.

Generally as far as i have seen Emotion driven people have great tendencies to be driven by whatever the surrounding circumstances and situation dictates. Once they do something and they are more prone to do the things (mistakes ) which they have already done, if the same kind of surrounding or circumstances repeats. Generally these kind of people succumbs to the surrounding circumstances and conditions very easily that’s why they repeat the mistakes. On the other hand reason driven people generally try to analyze the reasons for the failure in their endeavors and try to refrain themselves from those things. In this way they do not succumb to the surrounding circumstances and conditions but they fight against them and try to manipulate the surrounding conditions in their favor.

Man the great creation of GOD has abundant amount of energy. We use a very less percentage of that energy in our growth and development. If we keep on repeating the mistakes which we have already done in our life previously then most of our energy will be wasted in bearing the results of those mistakes. A man is like a powerful missile, but if there is a lack of self examination then it will something like a missile with no target fixed , so it will keep of going a wrong way and will waste its energy in some wrong direction.

Yes its true, that is it sometimes difficult to preplan the things for future and then to follow them, but if we recognize the black spots of our previous life and try to refrain ourselves from any such thing in the future then we can have a better future. But sometimes we don't want to accept that we have done something wrong we don't want to accept the things, this is a kind of rigidity and a kind of ego, and these two characteristics always hurdles in the learning of a person. A person's mind should always be flexible and should welcome changes and new ideas, otherwise the person will not change, and if person do not change then he will always lack. Changes are very important part of the life.

Self Examination and intro inspection may be compared with a kind of Data Mining where we mine our past and try to find out the interesting patterns. On the basis of association rules or a kind of pattern like if I do this then this is the result of this thing, then we can use those association rules in our future life. It will definitely help us and we will learn more and more new things instead of doing the same mistakes which we have already done.

These days computer world has grown up a lot, we have developed robots, which can automate the things, and even those kind of robots are available which use machine learning, it means they learn from the environment and past experiences and try to incorporate those past learning in the future life. Now here a question arises who developed robots, who developed machine learning algorithms, it’s the only man. If we can automate the things which we do , and we can make a robot think and to work in the same way as we do, then we can definitely do the same thing in our case.