Easy Way Out
If given a choice, we as Human Beings, are very fond of picking-up easy activities or tasks or assignment or projects, at least till the time we are pushed to or are left with no other choice but to breach the comfort zone. For example, we don’t like any assessment of our knowledge or work but we want people to believe that, “I and only I am the best”; and we don’t like to compete, rather we try to ignore the completion but we like to be declared as a winner. There are many such examples and incidents where we have demonstrated that we like “the easy way out”. This article is an attempt to highlight some of the things that we love doing and few other things that we conveniently try to ignore or avoid and rather find it difficult to do. Let’s first discuss easy things.
1) Complaining: We love complaining about almost everything around us. We complain about our government, our legal system and education system, our bosses and colleagues, policies about our organization / company, and almost everything that comes across our way. Complaints are our excuses for our non-performances, non-productiveness, our current state and almost all problems that we could figure out. “I cannot work in the day because my skin will get tainted and I cannot work in thenight because I am scared of darkness; I cannot work in summer because I feel hot and my body gets dehydrated and I cannot work in winter because I feel cold and my body becomes numb”.
2) Finding Mistakes: We are very good in finding mistakes too. You give us an excellent piece of work and we will still find a mistake in your work. We can find mistakes, even then when we do not know how that work has been done. We don’t know the A, B, C, D of painting or music or any creative work and yet we can find mistakes in that work to an extent of criticizing it, ridiculing it and rejecting it. We do not know how to cook but we can find mistakes in the food cooked by others.
3) Gossiping: We love talking about others and want to get entertained at the cost of others. We gossip and laugh on the way people walk, talk, eat, and dress-up, their mannerism as well as their behavior. We laugh when someone falls. We have hearty laugh on the failure of others. We laugh at their problems and sometimes on their pains.
4) Blaming: We are too good in blaming others, external factors and sometimes even God for our failures and problems. Isn’t it easy to blame others rather than accepting and taking-up the responsibility and accountability for everything that happens in our life? “I couldn’t deliver my project on time because X member or sub-team didn’t complete their portion or tasks of the project”. “I believe that the God wants me to go through all these problems”.
5) Giving opinions and unwarranted advices: Just because our opinions and advices do not hold us accountable for the outcome of an activity or task, we give them a lot, often and many times unwarranted and unsolicited. We are very assertive and many times aggressive in giving our opinions and advices. At the end, however, we shed away from any responsibility by saying, “It is your decision. I don’t want to interfere”.
6) Giving-up: When we hit the rough patch in our life and when going gets difficult, we find it easy to give-up. When uncertainty looms and carrying-on becomes difficult, we just give-up. Whereas, had we held the front for some more time or had we continued for some more time, the result could have been different. We do it in our love life and as well as in our professional life. People commit suicide because they find it difficult to carry-on, whereas, had they carried-on, the worst thing that could have happened is that they would have died. Isn’t it easier to carry-on and give all that you have and then die rather than committing suicide without even trying it.
7) Taking the credit: “I am or we are successful because of my hard-work, my talent, my vision and my luck”. Doesn’t it appear like a known or heard statement? In fact, it is. Whether we work solely or in a team or even than when the public or the audience is involve, we take credit for all good things and all the success; however, we shred away all responsibility that might have caused failure. Isn’t it easy? It is.
After having discussed the easiest tasks of our life and something that we all do, let’s touch upon some of the most difficult tasks of our life, something we ignore and prefer to avoid.
1) Appreciating Others: “I am good”; “I have done a great job”; “I can manage any situation”; “I am a terrific performer”; “I am a person of all seasons”; all these are feel-good statements. These statements help us to motivate ourselves and boost our self-esteem. Does it mean that I cannot fail? (Getting Complacent). Does it mean that others cannot perform well? Do we appreciate people on their achievements and successes or do we envy them? Very often we get so engrossed by I-ME-MYSELF syndrome that we do not see the good work done by people. If they are above us, we try to pull them down and if they are beneath us, then we try to push them down but we do not give an honest and sincere appreciation, even if the work is awesomely good. Even in their success, we try to find, “what is there for me”.
2) Making / Taking Decision: As it is we do not want to do anything that puts the accountability and responsibility of its outcome on us and when it comes to making a decision for others we always try to escape. We do not make decisions for masses; however, we can ridicule the decision made by others. Although, we were not in the capacity to make any decision at that point of time but most of us ridicule or criticize decisions made by our parents, elders and historians. We look for all kinds of information that may be required to make a decision and then we sit on that information. I have witnessed this on numerous occasions in my previous jobs.
3) To carry-on or to begin from Zero or to continue after set-back or failure: You lost everything that you had saved or created for yourself and now you have no other choice but to begin from zero, can you? It isn’t easy to make a new start; many people consider their crash-down as their early or forced retirement, only few people have the courage to make a new beginning. Giving-up is easy; reconstructing from the scratch is difficult.
4) To Accept the Truth: They say that one needs to have lots of courage to speak the truth. However, one needs to have more courage to accept the truth. We are not perfect. We have our weaknesses, limitations and areas of improvement. To accept the truth and to embrace our weaknesses is difficult. We cannot do everything. We cannot be aware or knowledgeable about everything. Why pretend to have known everything? Why promise to do something that you know you cannot? Why is it so difficult to face the reality or accept the truth?
5) Handling success and fame: I read it somewhere; don’t let success to get into your head and failure or criticism into your heart. We all want to be successful, rich and famous but what after reaching there? Handling applause, appreciation, success and fame is one of the most difficult things to do and most of us are not prepared for it. Most of us succumb to the pressure of success. Instead of moving on and doing a better job to keep the applause coming, we begin to consider our good phase as a permanent phase and try to live our entire life in that one moment.
This write-up is a summary of my experiences and interactions with various people from different walks of life, society and cultures. From a kindergartner kid to a CEO of a company, everybody knows how to find mistakes and complain about the current status. From someone who has won a lottery for the first time to a new acting or singing sensation to a seasoned performer and a first time manager, many of them mishandle success and fame and thereby doom downward.
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Have a great day and take good care of yourself.
Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali
Twitter: sanjeevhimachali
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