SELF CENTEREDNESS

A young boy, while travelling in a bus, was horrified to find that the money in his pocket was missing. When the conductor came to collect his ticket fare, the lad burst into tears. The kind-hearted bus conductor consoled him, ‘Do not worry… I shall pay for your fare of eight rupees.’ However, on receiving the ticket, the boy cribbed, ‘what about my change? I lost a fifty rupee note!’

The glossary of antonyms lists ingratitude as the reverse of gratitude. It is described as ‘forgetfulness of or poor return for kindness received’. However, the above story reveals a worse fault than forgetfulness. It confirms that 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-centeredness 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 centred 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. In fact, insensitivity will diminish the relationship

Let’s learn to be thankful for what we receive in terms of helping hands, without insisting that the help be proportionate to our need. 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. Self-centeredness needs to be eliminated for the true attitude of gratitude!

Insensitivity will strain and ruin the relationship…
BE BETTER at giving self-centeredness the skip!

- Pravin K. Sabnis