The Value of Obedience

 

One of the forgotten values of today is, “Obedience”. Obedience is an important value which is very much integrated with our Indian culture. I personally think, “Obedience is the mother of all values”, because without obedience, no other value can be inculcated in a person. Therefore, it is the base value, on which all other values are built.

 

Imagine a world without obedience.

• How would it be if no one follows any rules?
• How would it be if there is no right and wrong?

 

Yes. The world will be filled with confusion and chaos. It was with this purpose of bringing order in our lives, rules and laws were made, so that every human being in this world is able to lead a fair and safe life. Having made these rules and laws, it is the responsibility of every citizen of this country to respect the law and obey them. If not, that person will become a threat to the society.

I come to hear a lot of parents lamenting, “My child does not obey me. In those days, I used to blindly obey what my parents told me”.  It is so true. I too belong to that generation, where I have been unconditionally obedient to the words of my father, mother, teacher and even my uncles and aunts, irrespective of whether I liked it or not. But those days are no more. So, why this shift? Let us explore. I think there are a few reasons for this and few ways to deal with them.

 

First and foremost, the word obedience has found a negative connotation. Children tend to link obedience to slavery. They don’t like to be commanded, for it hurts their ego. They feel obeying the instructions given by someone, tampers their self-esteem. They need to be educated that, being an obedient student or obedient child, in no way demeans our value. In fact, it only enhances our value. The world praises Lord Rama, for being an obedient son. They have to be taught, that if they want to command respect, they should learn to give respect and the same is the case with obedience. In a corporate hierarchy, if you want your subordinates to obey you, you should be willing to obey your superiors.

 

Secondly, the generation of today is highly intelligent as they have access to infinite information, at the click of a mouse, which has increased their questioning ability. They need reason to be convinced, why they have to do, what they are asked to do. The problem therefore is not the obeying part, but our responsibility part in educating them, as to why a particular rule or order has to be obeyed. Rather than making it as a command, tell them in a way that they are able to find a reason. Also tell them the negative consequence of what would happen if you didn't obey by the rules. For example, you can say, “If you do not obey the traffic signal, while crossing the road you may get hit by a truck, which could cost your life or permanent disability.” This will make them think.

 

Another main reason is that, children are not able to look up at their parents as role models. They find duality in them. They find that their parents are not practicing what they are preaching. In other words, parents insist that the child should obey some family rules, but they themselves find them breaking it. For example, if we make a family rule that no one should watch TV, for more than an hour on weekdays, then that rule should apply to us, as well. Children do not do what we say, they do what we do. So, to make our child obedient, we need to be a good role model.

 

Obedience is the key to live a disciplined life. And a disciplined life is a key to be successful in life. Therefore, in order to make our children successful in their life, we need to take the extra effort to inculcate the value of obedience in their young minds, before it is too late for them to mend their ways. Also, let us make them aware that if they do not follow the law, they will be punished by law, because by breaking the law the person is doing harm to others. Reasoning and fear, will have to be the driving factor.

 

We can make it easy for them, by making a list of simple things they need to obey on a daily basis, like they have to wake up early, brush their teeth twice, put back the toys in the shelf once they finish playing, be courteous to guests who come home, keeping the room tidy, or waiting to cross the street. By educating our children, through simple ways, we could help them to move from lawful obedience (external force) to willful obedience (inner force), which would do them good, in the long run.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

 

Be Right, Kindly

I often come across this phrase, “It is better to be kind, than to be right”. Though on a human relationship aspect this sounds correct, I have somehow not been able to come to terms with it. Does it mean, that no matter how wrong or stupid, someone behaves we don’t have the right to correct them and just remain kind?

Nowadays, the whole idea of what is wrong and what is right has become debatable. People jump in to say, “What may be wrong for you, is right for someone else and vice versa. It is just a matter of perception or value system.” Well, all this perception stuff is fine, but still we know there are times, people are doing thing that is going to hurt them in the long run. In such a situation, is it not wise to step in and offer counsel, instead of just sitting back, in the name of being kind? Of course, in spite of all the advice if the person is still going on the wrong track, nothing can be done and he has to face the consequences of his decisions. But that should not stop us from intervening and suggesting corrective measures, especially when it is our spouse, child, parent, sibling or friend.

So, how do we give corrective feedback to someone without straining the relationship?  No one likes to hear unsolicited advice, and specially giving a corrective feedback can cause bitterness in a relationship and make the person distance himself from us.  So, how do we do it?

I listened to a YouTube video by Swamiji Gaur Gopal Das, through which he shared a 4 question mechanism, of giving corrective feedback to the person, in a way without sounding offensive. So here are the 4 questions. Let us explore it, one by one

1. Am I the right person?  So, how do we know, if we are the right person. We are the right person if the individual is a relative or friend. We would also be the right person, if we are an authority in that field.

2. Do I have the right motive? The motive behind trying to correct someone should be an authentic effort, which will genuinely benefit the individual and not just to satisfy our ego or to find fault on someone.

3. Do I know the right way? Many a time, the intention is good, but the way it is communicated can sound so harsh or abusive, that the person immediately tends to switch off from listening to you. So, we need to mind the tone of our voice. The issue may not be so big to flare it up so loud. What is spoken gently is often listened better than what is shouted upon. So, it is not about expressing our emotion, but explaining our intention.

4. Is it the right time?  It is human nature that we are generally spontaneous in our criticism, but slow in appreciation. It should be the other way round. When you are going to communicate something unpleasant, we need to choose the right time, which is definitely not immediately after the flaw took place, but when we are cool and the other person is cool too. This will help us to express the issue better and for the other person to take it with a better attitude.

Following this 4 question approach, I guess we can be right and kind, to a person at the same time. Give it a try, the next time you are faced with such a situation.

D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Expectation Vs Reality

 

Disappointment, Frustration, Anger and all such related feelings, stem out of the same root cause. The root cause being, that many a time the reality does not match expectation or in other words the reality falls short of our expectations. Let us examine the truth of the above statement in light of a few illustrations.

 

Your child is very intelligent, but somehow he does not score good marks when it comes to his academics. Every time, you hope he would score better next time, but the marks never seem to improve. In spite of your constant advice stressing the importance of marks, you do not see any visible result. You are disappointed.

 

You start a business venture, trusting one of your good old school day friends, who you have known for years. You have been very close pals, all through your life. At some point of time during the course of business dealings, there is a misunderstanding between you and your friend.  He behaves very differently. You are shocked. His careless behavior leads you to a big financial loss. You feel cheated. You feel betrayed. You experience disappointment.

 

One of your newly appointed managers is able to show tremendous improvement in your sales volume. Your business starts to boom. You feel like a lucky star and start building so much faith on him, that you delegate most of your work to him and move into your comfort zone. All of a sudden, he hands over a resignation letter, because he is got a better package somewhere in a foreign country. You feel helpless. You sense a fear of your business future. You never thought, he would quit all of a sudden. You are disappointed.

 

Does any of this, sound similar to your experience? Well many of us would have had some unpleasant experience of this sort.

 

The expectation was we wanted our child to score good marks, our friend to be trustworthy, our staffs to be faithful, but in reality things did not happen the way we wanted it to happen. Repeated disappointments leads to frustration and this frustration leads to anger. Is it not? At the end of the day, we are either angry with others or angry with ourselves.

 

All external anger, when given a deep reflection will boil down to internal anger. We will realize that it was our mistake to trust someone or expect someone to behave in a way that according to our perception is right. But they were their own selves and as always they will have their own side of the story for the purpose of justification.

 

The truth is, it is difficult for anyone to match our expectations. Expectations often lead to disappointment at work place, at family and amidst friends.  We expect our close friend to remember our birthday, but he may not call up. We expect our staff to be self motivated, but very often find ourselves pushing them to do the work. We expect our home to be always clean and tidy, but our kids throw up their things, all over the place. As an end result we end up with so many day to day disappointments, that life gets really frustrating at times.

 

I am not advocating that we should not have trust, faith or expectations on anyone. But what we need to look at is the limitations of the people, from who we expect and manage our expectations accordingly. Your trust in people should be based on the tried and tested method. We need to assess their ability, their interest and their integrity before we could set our expectations on them.

 

Expectations are like a seed planted on soil. Before we plant the seed we should know whether that particular soil has the potential for the seed to grow into a tree. Once we are convinced and sow the seed of expectation, we need to water it with words of motivation and appreciation, and provide the sunlight of affirmation and confidence. Eventually, we will realize that more and more of our expectations start to turn into reality.

 

In short, people management is nothing but expectation management.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com