Four children and others died on Saturday when the bus they were travelling skidded into a river. The driver has been arrested. The bus owner is accused of running an unfit vehicle and authorities who cleared it, are being questioned, too. Indignation is on a high but as time passes, this very emotion will turn effervescent. The unjustifiable will be justified or just be forgotten in the blame game.
In 1993, it was found that the RDX explosives got smuggled into Mumbai, due to the complicity of custom officials. While many were proven to be complicit with the crime, there was one who insisted that he was falsely informed that it was a regular consignment of silver that was being smuggled. Obviously, he found no fault in permitting what he perceived to be a lesser crime.
Degrees cannot be defined in unjustifiable acts. Yet we resort to such excuses when we make choices that are in variance with integrity. We err when we seek to defend the indefensible. What is harmful will eventually turn deadly. But till it turns deadly, we cannot insist that the degree of our action is less harmful.
To be better at being true to what is right and just for all; we must shun every unjustifiable act. We must scrutinise all actions, including our own, through the lens of uprightness, lest we turn accomplices in wrongdoing. This will give us greater strength and consistent conviction when we insist on accountability of every unjustifiable scam.
Let’s BE BETTER at steering clear of every ruse…
Wrongdoing can never be justified by any excuse!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
HYPE
Ten years ago, at the inaugural of a training workshop, my colleague trainer was presented as having conducted over 500 training programs. However, he was shocked to note that I was described as a trainer who had conducted only 300 workshops. In the tea break, he pulled up the organizers for attributing lesser programs to me, despite being senior as well as more active than him.
I led my friend away and told him that the person introducing me was quoting from information provided by me. Still bewildered, he queried, ‘how is it possible?’ Calmly I suggested that maybe his figures were wrong. In the evening we sat down and realized that he had conducted lesser than 60 training programs. His statistics was obviously hyped up.
So often we indulge in publicising or promoting ourselves through extravagant, inflated or misleading claims. Over a period of time, we start believing the hype that we ourselves have generated. Eventually we start describing the hype as fact. But the biggest casualty of such hype is our own mind that succumbs to mistaken beliefs.
Beliefs based on self-generated hype delude our discerning skills and put us on shaky ground. Sadly, hype is increasingly used to stand out in a world driven by media frenzy. But to be better at rising up we must ensure that the ground we stand on is firm and real. Otherwise we cheat others, as well as ourselves, by succumbing to the attitude of deceit born of falsehoods.
When we shun fruits that chemicals have turned ripe...
How can we BE BETTER by resorting to fraudulent hype?
- Pravin K. Sabnis
I led my friend away and told him that the person introducing me was quoting from information provided by me. Still bewildered, he queried, ‘how is it possible?’ Calmly I suggested that maybe his figures were wrong. In the evening we sat down and realized that he had conducted lesser than 60 training programs. His statistics was obviously hyped up.
So often we indulge in publicising or promoting ourselves through extravagant, inflated or misleading claims. Over a period of time, we start believing the hype that we ourselves have generated. Eventually we start describing the hype as fact. But the biggest casualty of such hype is our own mind that succumbs to mistaken beliefs.
Beliefs based on self-generated hype delude our discerning skills and put us on shaky ground. Sadly, hype is increasingly used to stand out in a world driven by media frenzy. But to be better at rising up we must ensure that the ground we stand on is firm and real. Otherwise we cheat others, as well as ourselves, by succumbing to the attitude of deceit born of falsehoods.
When we shun fruits that chemicals have turned ripe...
How can we BE BETTER by resorting to fraudulent hype?
- Pravin K. Sabnis
Monday, February 6, 2012
HEAR IT
Two friends, who met after many years, went for a walk together, renewing old times. Suddenly one of them stopped and said, ‘Hey, I think I hear something.’ He put aside a loose paving stone to set free a cricket that was chirping. His friend remarked, ‘that’s amazing… so many persons are on the street at this hour, hurrying from work; yet you alone heard the cricket above all the traffic noises.’
The first calmly remarked, ‘people hear in life only what they want to hear. Right now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased… but watch.’ He dropped a coin from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.
The man, who heard the cricket, had been able to retain his childlike ability to hear sounds. Obviously this was aided by his interest in the sounds of Nature. The hearing ability of the crowd was restricted to materialistic motivations like the sound of coins. We are born with amazing abilities to use our senses, but for most of us, as we grow those abilities get narrowed down to hear and see lesser and lesser.
It is true that we hear what we want to hear. Hence whenever we state that we did not hear something, we need to reconsider our attitude. We must accept that the onus is on us to heed and hear. Never mind the distractions; we must be better at listening. And the way to do that would rediscover the child within… that child was born with the ability to maintain an engaging interest and hence could hear it!
We did it so well as a child who could hear it...
Let’s BE BETTER at empowering the interest bit!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
The first calmly remarked, ‘people hear in life only what they want to hear. Right now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased… but watch.’ He dropped a coin from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.
The man, who heard the cricket, had been able to retain his childlike ability to hear sounds. Obviously this was aided by his interest in the sounds of Nature. The hearing ability of the crowd was restricted to materialistic motivations like the sound of coins. We are born with amazing abilities to use our senses, but for most of us, as we grow those abilities get narrowed down to hear and see lesser and lesser.
It is true that we hear what we want to hear. Hence whenever we state that we did not hear something, we need to reconsider our attitude. We must accept that the onus is on us to heed and hear. Never mind the distractions; we must be better at listening. And the way to do that would rediscover the child within… that child was born with the ability to maintain an engaging interest and hence could hear it!
We did it so well as a child who could hear it...
Let’s BE BETTER at empowering the interest bit!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
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