This is the result season and quite an emotional time for students and parents. Board exam results, percentages, competitions, college admissions, successes, failures etc. are the things that all over us these days. As usual, I went into nostalgia for a while. I remembered our days when we were of this age. In almost all gatherings of the friends and families, and trust me when I say that such gatherings were far more in those days, one hot topic of discussions was the performance of children in studies.

I found it so funny to see all the parents bragging about the achievements of their wards, including my own. Rightfully so. In a society where studies and marks and grades have disproportionately high importance in the middle class homes, I believe an element of pride is not misplaced either for children or their parents. But as it is said, more we change more we remain same. One generation has changed but not the mindsets and Indian society in this respect. Only addition to social gatherings is social media now. We were children then and now is the time for our children. Just like our parents, we are proud of the achievements of our children and making others know about the same.

In those days only I read an article about parents’ infatuation with the achievements of their children. The article said there are two bad manners in which we all indulge. One, bragging about the achievements of children by middle age people in front of others and two, endless speaking of their ailments by oldies with others. The fact is that apart from the speakers, no one else is really interested in both. The audience, in most cases, barely sustains the conversation. In first case generally the reaction inside is of jealousy or ‘what’s the big deal’, ‘how does it affect us’, ‘even my children did better than this but I never announced it’ etc. Only few people find happiness in your happiness. On the contrary, children’s achievements are such a soft spot with most people that I have seen smart people using it very successfully to curry favour with tough bosses or senior people. However tough a person may be, just get the conversation veer around his children and then see how quickly you get your way through. In the second case where the old people speak about their health issues, generally people from same age group think ‘why is he saying this to us, we are going through the same, why can’t he speak something that makes us forget our health and make us laugh’. Younger generation, relatively healthier and busier, in any case has no connect with them. They have no way to empathize with the concerns of the old. So whenever they speak about such things people sustain the conversation with great difficulty.

The issue that caught my imagination today is not this, but something else. This was just to bring the context out. I’ve been observing for quite some time the behaviour of people with whom I interact, including my own. Almost everybody is eager to tell others about himself, his achievements, sorrows, happiness, problems etc. and expects others to connect and appreciate the same. All bosses, irrespective of the level of their competencies, would like their subordinates to believe how great they are. When people meet their good friends they would want to tell them all about the problems and pleasures and expect them to be part of their feelings and world. While there may be many subjects of the conversation, during the course of the same it invariably happens that one of the persons walks on this path. In almost all cases I’ve observed that the other person, whosoever he may be, either subordinate or a friend, somehow sustains that part of the conversation, or sometimes changes the topic either rudely or diplomatically. But the person who is speaking is so engrossed in his self-love that he continues with this sort of monologue. It is so amusing to see is that the person who is so eager to share his exploits or travails, becomes very uncomfortable the moment other person starts sharing his own feelings. As I am writing this many such instances are dancing in front of my eyes.

Whatever anyone may say, infatuation in self is very wide spread phenomenon. The difference is only in degrees. Here I’m not advocating that one should not love himself. In fact one must love himself first, foremost and above all. But this is a different context on which I’ll write some other day. Today the context is that we expect others to share our own feelings of self-love. We never realize that for others we are ‘others’ and just like we expect them to understand us and our feelings, we have equal responsibility towards them too.

Does that mean everybody around us is the same? Don’t we have people who would be happy in our happiness and sad in our sorrows? Yes, we have such people around. But they are very few. We need to be discerning in identifying them. They are like sponge when it comes to absorbing your sorrows and problems, only some time giving their opinion if asked. They are also like flowers that bloom when they hear about your pleasures. Generally such people have nothing to do with actual relations we may have with them. Just because a person is your spouse, child, friend, uncle, aunt does not make it necessary that he or she should share your feelings of successes and failure and sorrows. Whenever we find such a person around us we must recognize him for what he is and give him the due respect and place in our lives.

My objective of writing ‘my little thoughts’ is not about changing the world or others but understanding the world around ourselves and calibrating our own conduct. So, my own belief is that while we can’t change others and can’t expect them to understand our feelings and connect with them, what we can do is to try to connect with others and understand their feelings. A situation where we empathize with others and connect with them will at least put us in a situation where we become a tool to bring happiness to others. But to do this we need to be aware of those situations when we tell others about ourselves and when others tell us about themselves. Slowly the second component has to increase and first component has to reduce. Once the movement starts happening, we will realize that we are becoming far happier ourselves than what we were in the first situation.

My Little Thought Of Life in this matter is that we need to be conscious with whom we share our happiness, sorrows and problems. It is futile for us to expect majority of people to connect with us irrespective of our relationship with them. But the very few who connect with us must become very important to us, to be respected at all times. We must make a conscious attempt not to talk about ourselves and our exploits with others since generally they are not appreciated, but only tolerated. Conversely, we need be open to listening to others and their happiness and sorrows. Unless the other person is openly bragging when we need to put him down, it is better to give your ear and thoughts to the person who wants to share his feelings with us. Slowly, it will lead us to a situation when we will start finding happiness in others happiness and pain in others sorrows. To start with we may keep one day in a week when we should try not to speak about us, but just show interest in others thoughts, feelings, happiness and sorrows.

Today I wish my friends and readers to shift the focus away from self to others and enjoy the feeling of bliss.