It was one of the rainy days, I and
my son, Sidhaarth where going on the car. I was in the driver’s seat and he was
seated beside . As we all know, the
condition of our roads during the rainy season is horrible with pot holes here
and there, allowing for stagnation of rain water. As I was driving , my car
glided through a puddle of water and the water happened to splash upon one of
the pedestrian walking by the side. I did not take much notice of it, but my
son called out to my attention and said: “Dad, you just splashed the dirty
water on a pedestrian”. By his voice I could understand that he was unhappy of
what just happened. So, I took a defying stance by telling him, “What am I to
do? The roads are like that”. My son responded,
“No dad, if you slow down the car where the water is stagnated you can avoid
splashing water, on others”. It was a invisible slap on my cheeks. I realized
it was my mistake. I felt bad for being insensitive to the pedestrians. I
resolved within myself, I will be more concerned about the pedestrians
hereafter.
There are many instances in our
life, when people bring to our attention our mistakes, but most of the time, we
just try to defy it, with our justification. Though later we realize that we were
actually wrong. It is our ego, our sense of superiority that does not allow us
to take it on the face.
Our natural instinct when
somebody pinpoints our mistakes is to question, does that person deserve to
comment on us. If we keep looking at things that way, nothing good is ever
going to happen in our life. Let us say, you go to a doctor and he tells you
that you have to stop smoking to save your lungs or stop drinking to save your
liver and the same evening you see the same doctor, having a nice smoke and drink
in a bar, you may tend to ask, “he does not practice what he preaches, then why
does he advice”. But is that a wise question to ask? No! You take his advice for his competency, as a
doctor and not for his character as an individual person.
When some of my close circle of
friends, pinpoint my mistakes, though at the first instance it makes me a
little worried or upset, after a few minutes it makes me realize where I am
wrong. It deepens my awareness. People who see us from far, may think we are extra
ordinary, but it is those close set of people who see us at close quarters, who
can pinpoint our mistakes. It is the special right we ourselves have endowed
upon them.
My friend from the training
fraternity, Mr.Angappan often uses this phrase in his training sessions. “Be happy,
when your wife pinpoints your mistakes. Be happy when your boss finds fault
with your work. Be happy when your close friends, tell you are wrong. If not
for them , who has got the right to pinpoint our mistakes. And if there is no
one to make us aware of our mistakes, how do we learn and how do we grow”. I
think, it is a very valuable point. God has blessed us with wonderful
relationships, not just to pamper us with nice pleasing words, but to give some
constructive criticism which helps us change for the better.
In the name of pinpointing the
mistakes of our close ones, let us not develop a nagging tendency and make
ourselves hostile to them. There is a subtle difference between nagging and
pinpointing. For the purpose of clarity, let me add, pinpointing is saying once
and leaving it there. It just brings awareness to the other person and the
change has to happen from within. Nagging is stressing on the same mistakes
again and again, till the other person has changed. But most of the times,
nagging leads a person to repeat the mistake again and again rather than
change. Or at the very best, the person may pretend, as if he has changed, but
real change may not happen.
I received a nice thought
provoking SMS, which read , “Every one says, we learn by mistakes. But the
learning happens only when we take steps to correct our mistakes.” I think it is very true. We often admit, we
were wrong, but we do not do much to correct our mistakes.
As we reach the end of 2009, and
about to start the new year 2010, let us resolve to learn from our mistakes and
not repeat them.
Happy Reading,
D.Senthil Kannan
Article dated Dec'09
