LUCK?

Once, an old farmer’s old horse ran off into the hills. When, his neighbours sympathised with him over his bad luck, the farmer replied, 'Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?' A week later the horse returned with an imposing wild horse from the hills and this time the neighbours congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, 'Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?'

The farmer's son fell off and broke his leg while attempting to tame the wild horse. Everyone thought this to be bad luck. But the farmer maintained the same reaction, 'Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?' A week later the army marched into the village and forcefully enlisted every able-bodied youth. However they let off the farmer's son due to his broken leg.

Luck is said to be good if things go our way and bad if things go astray. But what seems good luck may actually turn bad and vice versa as well. So often, we hurry to attribute our so-called-luck to ridiculous reasoning. In fact, superstition arises from beliefs in luck being controlled by unseen forces, magical rituals and bizarre behaviour. Obviously, people who believe in luck tend to disconnect with pluck!

People who can be described retrospectively as “lucky” actually generate their own success via the following tactics: They develop proactive skills to notice and create ‘chance’ opportunities. They make prudent decisions using imagination as intuition. They create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations. They adopt a resilient logical attitude to transform so called bad luck into good. Dynamic personalities do not bother too much about luck… they create their own “luck”!

So often we pray for Good fortune to eclipse our Bad Luck…
But to BE BETTER at scripting our destiny, let’s hold on to pluck!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

OPPOSITE OF GRATITUDE

My Moral Science school text book contained the case of a school boy travelling in a bus. When the conductor came to collect his ticket fare, the lad was horrified to note that his money was missing. As he burst into tears, the kind-hearted bus conductor consoled him, “Stop crying, son… I shall pay for your fare of four rupees.” However, on receiving the ticket, the boy cribbed, “what about my change? I lost a fifty rupee note!”

The dictionary of antonyms lists ingratitude as the opposite of gratitude. Ingratitude is explained as “forgetfulness of or poor return for kindness received”. However, the above story reveals a worse fault than forgetfulness. Surely, the opposite of gratitude is our own selfish attitude of expectations and demands on others around us. We are so appropriated by our own self-centredness that we fail to realise our self-absorbed thanklessness is making us insensitive to the value of gratitude.

When we let our demands dominate our relationships, the result is ruinous. So often, we give up on relationships because we are unhappy with the time or the attention we receive. Relationships centered on expectations suck our emotional strength and drain our personal resources. Sometimes even the strongest commitment can’t counterbalance the depletion that our friends or loved ones may feel if we treat them like this.

Let’s learn to be thankful for what we receive in terms of helping hands. Let’s never measure the love and kindness that we get. We must look at what we receive, and not be seized by how much we receive.

Selfish thanklessness strains and ruins relationships…
Let’s BE BETTER at giving self-centeredness the skip!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

GRATITUDE

A Zen master’s school was in urgent need of repairs. A rich man generously donated five hundred ryo (gold pieces). However, after handing over the sack of gold, he was disappointed with the attitude of the teacher who did not thank him.

Slyly he hinted, "There are five hundred ryo in the sack". The master remained silent. "Even if I am wealthy, five hundred ryo is a lot of money," the rich man persisted. The master calmly asked, "Do you want me to thank you for it?" "Shouldn’t you?" queried the donor.

"Why should I?" retorted the master, "The giver should be thankful."

So often, when we give or share our riches, we hold on to the expectation of being thanked. In fact, appreciation as a prerequisite offsets even the most sincere of intentions and actions. It is a common human tendency and also the reason for grief and hurt when the receiver does not thank the giver.

To be better at ‘giving’ we must break the fetters of expectation. Otherwise our otherwise noble action will turn into a bartered transaction. Generosity should not be combined with commerce-like hope of appreciation. The inner joy that should naturally follow a good deed is stifled by an unfilled expectation of reciprocal thanks-giving. Let’s instead be grateful at the joy that comes out of unconditional giving.

To BE BETTER at the joyful-giving attitude…
Let go of the expectation of stated gratitude!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

MURPHY’S LAW

“If anything can go wrong, it will!" – Murphy’s Law

So often, when things go wrong, we use the crutches of what is popularly known as Murphy’s Law to justify unanticipated failure. Thus we shift the onus of responsibility from ourselves and condemn the fiasco to the vagaries of the unknown. Some call it fate, some call it bad luck and others may find a better word. But Murphy’s Law is really something else...

This modern theory is credited to Capt. Murphy, an engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949. One day, on finding a wrongly wired transducer, he cursed the technician responsible by saying, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it." The project manager added it to his list of "laws" and called it Murphy's Law thus giving name to an ancient pessimism.

However, the articulation of the negative was put to positive use by the Air Force. In fact, they went on to describe their good safety record as due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it. Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it became part of modern metaphor.

Murphy’s Law is not about cynical logic about our perceived vulnerability. The law’s effectiveness is in first envisioning the most remote of possibilities for “things going wrong”, and taking remedial measures. While it is good to do the right things; to BE BETTER we must be able to anticipate what can go wrong. Doing so is termed risk analysis in planning parlance.

Murphy’s law inspires us to BE BETTER at the affirmative…
By the prediction and prevention of every possible negative!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

RETURN GIFT

A carpenter, who built timber houses, told his employer of his desire to retire. The contractor was sorry to see a good workman go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favour. The carpenter said yes, but it was obvious that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy work and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When he went to hand over the keys, his colleagues arranged for a small function. His boss recounted the carpenters’ commitment to his craft and announced an appropriate farewell gift to the carpenter. "You have built the finest of homes and you deserve one of the same," saying so he handed back the key of the latest house built by the carpenter.

Imagine the predicament! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the mediocre home that he himself had built so poorly. Ditto for us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to give lesser than our best effort to the task at hand. Then with a shock we look at the predicament that we ourselves have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that our efforts were going to return to us as gifts, we would have done it differently.

We need to think of ourselves as the carpenter. Each time we hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall, we must give nothing but the best. It is said so well that "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Our life today is the result of our attitudes and choices in the past. Our life tomorrow will be the result of our attitudes and the choices we make today.

Never ever retire from wanting to BE BETTER
Things we do return as gifts… sooner or later!

- Pravin K. Sabnis