Personality Ethic v/s Character Ethic

(This piece of writing is taken from the book "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. It reflects his views on character ethic & personality ethic by depiction of the problem he & his wife faced while dealing the issue of development of their son.)

"A few years ago, my wife Sandra & I were struggling with a kind of concern. One of our son was having a very difficult time in school. He was doing poorly academically; he didn't even know how to follow the instructions on the tests, let alone do well on them. Socially he was immature, often embarrassing those closest to him. Athletically, he was small, skinny, and uncoordinated- swinging his baseball bat, for example, almost before the ball was even pitched. Others would laugh at him.

Sandra & I were consumed with a desire to help him. We felt that if "success" were important in any area of life, it was supremely important in our role as parents. So we worked on our attitudes and behaviour towards him and we tried to work on his. We attempted to psych him up using positive mental attitude techniques. "Come on, son! You can do it! We know you can. Put your hands a little higher on the bat & keep your eye on the ball. Don't swing till it gets close to you." And if he did a little better, we would go to great lengths to reinforce him. "That's good,son, keep it up." When others laughed, we reprimanded them. "Leave him alone. Get off his back. He's just learning." And our son would cry and insist that he'd never be any good and that he didn't like baseball anyway. Nothing we did seemed to help, and we were really worried. We could see the effect this was having on his self-esteem. We tried to be encouraging and helpful and positive, but after repeated failure, we finally drew back and tried to look at the situation on a different level.

At this time in my professional role I was involved in leadership development work with various clients throughout the country. In that capacity I was preparing bimonthly programs on the subject of communication and perception for IBM's Executive Development Program participants. As I researched and prepared these presentations, I became particularly interested in how perceptions are formed, how they govern the way we see, and how the way we see governs how we behave. This led me to a study of expectancy theory and self-fulfilling prophecies or the"Pygmalion effect", and to a realization of how deeply embedded our perceptions are. It taught me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world. As Sandra & I talked about the concepts I was teaching at IBM and about our own situation, we began to realize that what we were doing to help our son was not in harmony with the way we really saw him. When we honestly examined our deepest feelings, we realized that our perception was that he was basically inadequate, somehow "behind". No matter how much we worked on our attitude and behaviour, despite our actions and our words, what we really communicated to him was,"You aren't capable. You have to be protected." We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change our perceptions.

The Personality & Character Ethics

The Character Ethic is the foundation of success- things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty and the Golden rule. These are basic principles of effective living, and people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

The Personality Ethic includes public image, attitudes, behaviours, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction. It essentially take two paths: one is human & public relation techniques, and the other is positive mental attitude(PMA).

This Personality Ethic, I began to realize, was the subconscious source of the solutions Sandra and I were attempting to use with our son. As I thought more deeply about the difference between the Personality and Character Ethics, I realized that Sandra & I had been getting social mileage out of our children's good behaviour, and, in our eyes, this son didn't simply measure up. Our image of ourselves, and our role as good, caring parents was even deeper than our image of our son and perhaps influenced it. There was a lot more wrapped up in the way we were seeing and handling the problem than our concern for our son's welfare. As Sandra & I talked, we became painfully aware of the powerful influence of our own character & motives and of our perception of him. We knew that social comparison motives were out of harmony with our deeper values and could lead to conditional love and eventually to our son's lessened sense of self-worth. So we determined to focus our effort on us- not on our techniques, but on our deepest motives and our perception of him. Instead of trying to change him, we tried to stand apart- to separate us from him- and to sense his identity, individuality, separateness, and worth. Through deep thought and the exercise of faith and prayer, we began to see our son in terms of his own uniqueness. We saw within him layers and layers of potential that would be realized at his own pace and speed. We decided to relax and get out out of his way and let his own personality emerge. We saw our natural role as being to affirm, enjoy, and value him. We also conscientiously worked on our motives and cultivated internal sources of security so that our own feelings of worth were not dependent on our children's "acceptable" behaviour. As we loosened up our old perception of our son and developed value-based motives, new feelings began to emerge. We found ourselves enjoying him instead of comparing or judging him. We stopped trying to clone him in our own image or measure him against social expectations. We stopped trying to kindly, positively manipulate him into an acceptable social mold. Because we saw him as fundamentally adequate and able to cope with life, we stopped protecting him against the ridicule of others. He had been nurtured on this protection, so he went through some withdrawal pains, which he expressed and which we accepted, but did not necessarily respond to. " We don't need to protect you," was the unspoken message. "You're fundamentally okay." As the weeks & months passed, he began to feel a quiet confidence & affirmed himself. He began to blossom, at his own pace & speed. He became outstanding as measured by standard social criteria- academically, socially and athletically- at a rapid clip, far beyond the so-called natural developmental process. As the years passed, he was elected to several student body leadership positions, developed into an all-state athlete and started bringing home straight "A" report cards. He developed an engaging and guileless personality that has enabled him to relate in nonthreatening ways to all kinds of people.

Sandra & I believe that our son's "socially impressive" accomplishments were more a serendipitous expression of the feelings he had about himself than than merely a response to social reward. This was an amazing experience for Sandra & me, and a very instructional one in dealing with our other children and in other roles as well. It brought to our awareness on a very personal level the vital difference between the Personality Ethic and the Character Ethic of success. The Psalmist expressed our conviction well:"Search your own heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life."

5 stages of relationships

"There seems 5 stages of any relationship to me.They're attraction, acceptance, progression, maintenance & consolidation. At the onset of relationship, it's mostly physical attraction. Then comes the mental acceptance followed by mutual progression. The last two stages are really difficult but nevertheless most important.It requires careful maintenance of a relationship to give it an lasting consolidation. That's when you can say the relationship to have truly matured. The initial steps are mostly taken subconsciously but last two require conscious efforts from the concerned persons. They don't just happen on their own. It demands a gr8 amount of care & commitment, patience & perseverance, sacrifice & sensibility to achieve such kind of eternal relationship! " This thought I've written a few months back after the discussion with a lady friend about relationship, particularly that of couples, be it a married one or that claim to be in love with each other. That got me to think what the real love should mean especially in committed relationships like marriage. This reminded me a quote from a writing which probably should satisfy all the requirements of the definition of true love in any lasting relationship. It says,"પ્રેમ એ પવિત્રતાની મૂર્તિ છે. એ હ્રદયમાં ઉદભવેલું નૈસર્ગિક ઝરણું છે. વફાદારી અને સમર્પણ એના ફેફસાં છે. સહનશક્તિ અને શ્રધ્ધાપૂર્વક વિશ્વાસ એનો પ્રાણવાયુ છે. અદ્વૈતતા અને અભેદત્વની અનુભૂતિ એ એનું જીવનબળ છે. પ્રેમ એટલે પોતાને ગમતી વ્યક્તિને પ્રસન્નતા અર્પવાની બિનશરતી તૈયારી!" Sometimes we fail to distinguish between romance & love. Romance is an art of expressing your emotions to your loved ones. It is used to charm someone with an expressive act like giving flowers or candle-light dinner etc. Love is all about feeling other persons emotions & caring for your loved ones. It may be in the form of wearing the clothes of his/her choice or arranging for financial securities like insurance, bank deposits etc., in case anything happens to you. It may not look romantic at all but it may be better than plain romance in terms of caring & loving. Romance is all physical & outwardly. Love is absolutely inwardly & eternal. Romance may or may not be there in your relationship, depending upon your nature. But love is the most essential ingredient for any successful relation. As someone has rightly said that the formula for the successful relationship is,"Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it was a disaster!" If we can get these words right in our mind, I don't think we'll have any problem with having & handling our most important relationships. किशोरदा का ये गाना भी तो यही बात का इशारा कर रहा है,
"कुछ लोग इक रोज़ जो बिछड़ जातें हैं,
वो हजारों के आने से मिलते नहीं;
उम्रभर चाहे कोई पुकारा करे उनका नाम;
वो फ़िर नहीं आते, वो फ़िर नहीं आते।
कल तड़पना पड़े याद में जिनकी,
रोक लो रूठकर उनको जाने न दो;
बादमें प्यारके चाहे भेजो हजारों सलाम;
वो फ़िर नहीं आते, वो फ़िर नहीं आते।
जिंदगीके सफर में गुज़र जातें हैं जो मकाम;
वो फ़िर नहीं आते, वो फ़िर नहीं आते।"

Action, Violence & Cruelty !

Awesome!Mind-blowing!The biggest block-buster ever made in Indian cinema with record-breaking collection of Rs.225 crores in just 2 weeks! You must have got the clue that I'm talking about the latest Bollywood hit "Ghajini".The film is no doubt an outright Hindi masala movie with the typical south-Indian touch,the U.S.P. of its huge success is a result of synergistic combination of Aamir's 8pack physique & scarred trimmed hair-style,Asin's fresh look & performance, a bit novel concept of short-term memory loss & above all extra-ordinary marketing strategies. Aamir rocks as ever but the film is not of his level.I mean, how can u expect such violent film from the maker of a super sensitive film like "Taarein Zameen Par"? You just have a sense of discomfort after seeing all the violence in the movie. It leaves a gloomy effect on ur mind. Some people are rightly demanding "A" certificate for the film because the film is certainly not for the children. I've a couple of experiences to share in this context. My son Marmik was so frightened while watching the movie that he asked us to leave the movie & go home. When we reassured him, though he didn't forced us to go home; he still avoided watching violent scenes & preferred to wander outside. Similarly, my friend Jignesh's son, Nityam could not sleep properly for about a week after seeing "Ghajini". He used to wake up from sleep at night, terrified with fear. These are my personal experiences. I'm sure there'll be many more in general. I think our film-makers are well-versed with the art of film-making but they still have to learn the moral aspect of it. They don't seem to make distinction between the action,violence & the cruelty. All martial art films like that of Jackie Chan's, Bruce Lee's & of course Matrix are purely action films.It requires perfect training,timing & treatment just like filming a dance sequence. It's an art.It's fun.You can enjoy every bit of it. Violence is something beyond action as in war films, revenge films, films like 300,Troy,Gladiator etc. But when the film-maker goes a step further to terrify the viewer demolishing all the standards of decency, it becomes the cruelty.The violence in such films is so cold-blooded,ruthless & torturous that you feel aversion for it. Such kind of picturization is always avoidable.It does not make the movie impressive at all. You don't want to see that movie again.It may leave a long-lasting effect in the innocent minds of the children.I pray to the Almighty that he give those children "a long-term memory loss" for forgetting such cruelly violent movie!

uttarayan- the prince of all festivals

Today's post is obviously about uttarayan. Two days of complete joy,thrill, excitement, celebration & togetherness. Thinking philosophically, the kite & the string represent our body & mind respectively. It shows us that if we can control our body's physical instincts by our mind, we can fly high in our life. But this require strong will-power just like the kite requires strong string to remain unbeaten in the sky. If we have a healthy body and a strong mind, we can give our character such height that no one dare to pull us down & even anyone cuts down our string, our character should not get affected. We should fly the new kite with the same string unaffected by previous defeat.The kite may go up or down but the spirit should always remain high forever. Leaving apart the philosophical aspect, the festival itself is a carnival of joy & happiness. This 14th January was no different at all. It started with flying kites at my childhood house at Pragatinagar. Though very few kites are flown there on an average, the thrill of being on the terrace of the house where we spent the most memorable part of our life-our childhood- was special & my mind was clouded with some nostalgic moments. Watching your childhood friends & neighbours who have grown up considerably in size,shape & structure was a moving experience. At noon we went to my cousin Divyam's house. Being together with the Lovely Cousin Group is in itself an event, & if it's on festival like uttarayan, then it becomes a special one. The wind was down but we still enjoyed by playing "Ghasarkatta". We LCG people don't need reason to enjoy, we just create it! The lunch was fantastic. Thanks Minufoiba & Hiral for your efforts. The evening we spent on my dear friend Dr.Manish Joshi's terrace. Kites were followed by bites! Flying followed by food! Thanks Joshi for the amazing dinner especially the "Khichado"! Frankly speaking, I'm not an expert kite-flier. Still I enjoyed this uttarayan the most. The reason is obvious. When you've spent the whole day enjoying with your childhood surroundings, family, relatives, neighbours, friends, brothers & sisters; the people you love the most;what else do you require to have fun? In my opinion, if Diwali is the King of festivals & Navratri the Queen, the Uttarayan is the Prince of all the festivals. Though it is considered as the festival of youth, but in fact it is the festival of all the ages. We could see that literally when me,my father & my son Marmik were on the terrace at the same time looking at the sky for the flying kites! The Vaasi Uttarayan we spent at Naroda, my in laws house. That was no less fun than Uttarayan. Again it was a famous combination of furious flying followed by fantastic food. The evening was the time for the magnificent display of fireworks along with the Tukkalbaji & dance parties on terrace. The youth has given this festival a whole new look. The kites & lights, the colours & crackers, the dinner & dance! Where can you get to enjoy such range of fun filled activities on the same day in a single festival?If Navratri is the face of Gujarat, then Uttarayan is the face of Ahmedabad. If any one has ever enjoyed the Uttarayan of Ahmedabad, I'm sure he'll going to remember that for his lifetime! We're lucky to have festivals like Uttarayan.I love Uttarayan because I love celebration. I love Ahmedabad because I love life. I love Gujarat because this is the land where life is a celebration itself! This is the Vibrant Gujarat! जय जय गर्वी गुजरात!

दिल ना सगपण !

छती आँखें मारूं दर्द न जोयुं, शुं लागणीओ थी तुं अंध छे?
के पछी जाणी-जोईने सगवड खातर गणत्रीथी करेलो आ प्रबंध छे?
आपणी प्रेमकथानो आव्यो आ केवो अणधार्यो अंत छे?
सुखनी सफर पूरी थई मारी पण तारा माटे अनंत छे।
प्रेम छे नाम समर्पणनुं ऐ क्यां हार-जीत नो सम्बन्ध छे?
दिलमां तारा हूँ नथी भले, मारा श्वास मां तारी सुगंध छे।
तारे काजे खुल्या जे रस्ता ऐ मारे माटे हवे बंध छे।
तू पराई थई गई तो शुं थयुं ? दिल ना सगपण हजी अकबंध छे!

-मोहित शाह (८-१-०९)

This poem I've written on 8-1-09. It was inspired by a story published in newspaper. In fact, the last line of this poem was published as a title to this story. After reading that I felt an instinct to create some more lines. The words came coming from my mind & poem was done in half an hour. It narrates the pain of dejection from the loved one. One can see that at the onset, the man seems agitated asking for an explanation from his lover. He even makes allegations of being emotionally blind & mean. But later on his aggression gives way to rationalization. He looks the whole incidence in a philosophical way. He accepts that his journey for his love has ended because he can't make her his companion. But he is going to continue his search for happiness for ever by loving her from the depth of his heart. He smells her fragrance in his breaths. He realizes that love is not a matter of gaining or losing but it's a matter of unconditional giving. You have to devote your life for your love without expecting anything in return. Lovers may get defeated but not love itself. He rationalize the things at the end by thinking that although she is owned by someone else, the relations of hearts (दिल ना सगपण) is still intact. One can see how his feelings matured with the advancement of the poem. The feeling of dejection gives way to devotion. We can feel the journey of emotions ranging from agony to agitation to allegation to realization,rationalization & revitalization of the relationship. I will like to call this as the upliftment of love."प्रेम नुं उर्ध्विकरण" !

श्री शोभित देसाई आ ज वात तेमना अंदाज़ मां कहेता फरमावे छे ;

"हतो जे आपणो सम्बन्ध ऐना भग्न अवशेषो ,

शिशु माफक चगळतो हूँ हजी पण त्यांज उभो छूं !

चिकित्सितात न पुण्यम किश्चित !

Today again, I have an incidence with my patient to share. I have made a habit that if any of my patients has gone out of town & calls me from there for any medical help, then I just ask him his problem & sms the treatment which he can show to a chemist & take the medicines to deal with the problem. This way they can handle the routine medical problems through our telephonic communication. The reason for doing this is, people tend to avoid going to an unknown doctor in unknown place. The trust level between the patient & his family doctor is such that they just get relief merely by talking to him. 1 of my patient similarly called me for assistance for his sore throat & I sent sms of treatment as usual. This was the second time he utilized my sms facility from outstation. On coming back,he straight away came to me thanking me for my help & offered me the fees for it. I just denied saying that it's my value-added service for the privileged patients. He then mentioned that ever since they have started coming to me for treatment, they have become care free about their health.He told,"हम को लगता है,जो मर्ज़ी खाओ,जहाँ चाहे जाओ;हमें कुछ नहीं होगा।और अगर कुछ हुआ भी तो डॉक्टर साब तो हैं ही!"This I think is a big complement for a professional when his customer is happy to visit him frequently & gets rest assured of the good care, no matter what may be the circumstances. Some people tell me that why don't I take charge for the telephonic consultations. The reason is obvious. Than I would get some money but lose the invaluable faith which money can't buy. The dream of a doctor should not be to make a lot of money, but it should be to win such faith & loyalty. I have seen patients in my career who are so faithful to their doctor that they literally said,"If our doctor give us any medicine & anybody tell us that it's poison, we will take that without hesitation & if we die than what better to die in hands of a doctor like ours!"This is the highest level of faith you can achieve & the journey towards that starts from taking initiatives in terms of taking extra care of patients in your daily practice like I mentioned before. The faith,the emotions, the relief, the gratefulness which you see on your patients eyes after such gestures are more rewarding than any amount of money paid.That's why it's truly said in 'अथर्व वेद' ;"चिकित्सितात न पुण्यम किश्चित"।

is recession catching us slowly but surely?

A couple of days back, one of my patients came to me for taking treatment for his cold. After my consultation, he asked me,"How's Ur work going?" Little amused by his question, I asked him to elaborate on his quest. He told me that as everyone is very much considerate about the recent economic slowdown, he just wanted to check whether our medical profession is also facing such problems. I explained him that as ours is an essential service, it gets less affected by the slowdown. Then he told me that he is working in an event-management company & they are now face to face with the hazards of economic slowdown. The work has reduced like anything in this sector & they may consider job cut-off anytime. He was very much stressed by this fact & was considering to change the job or may start doing some additional work to meet his ends.This incidence led me to think if this may b the start of the ill-effects of recession. Though I'm not good at economics by any means but psychological aspects of economy I looked at & believe that the effects of recession becomes apparent in stages.Firstly,it wipes out the surplus money of affluent.In second stage non-essential services like event management,marketing& entertainment sector gets affected.Than it starts catching up the consumer sections & now middle class gets the punch of the slowdown.& when every1 resorts 2 cost-cutting & lay-offs, this is the time when the poor class gets affected by the slowdown. When this happens, this becomes the worst form of recession.People literally will fight for the basic necessities.Then not only economic but social system will also breakdown.I can see that v r now in the second phase of the recession.People seem to restrict expenses in marketing & recreation.I hope everything turns well before it creeps to the last phase. But right now, as an individual we can take some steps for our safety on terms of avoiding erratic spending & revert to the orthodox style of "save for Ur future" mentality.

enough is enough!

enough is enough!

करवु रह्यु कंइ आपणे : Enough is Enough.

आंसू न शोभे पांपणे : Enough is Enough.

राजकारण, धर्मकारण, स्वार्थकारण बहु थयुं।

बहु डस्या ऐ सापणे : Enough is Enough.

आ तबाही नी धगधगती आग ने सळगावीने

तापी लीधुं ऐ तापणे : Enough is Enough।

What better than to start the blog with a poem! this poem was published in "Gujarat Samachar" on 31-12-08 in a column by shri Tushar Shukla. It reflects the aggression of people's mind after 26/11 bomb blasts in Mumbai. It is call for our conscience to do whatever possible without any fear against the evils, both outside & inside our country. It says all by including राजकारण, धर्मकारण & स्वार्थकारण। We have suffered a lot till date but we haven't dared to stand against that. But it's high time that we should prepare us to fight against any threats to our country & society as a whole. We have kept quiet for years. We have been patient with them in vain hope that everything will change for better someday. But we can't wait for more. We can't tolerate these ridicles anymore. They've misused our generousity for their malacious perposes. But now it's our turn to show them our real metal. We've been a quiet sufferers til now, but enough is enough. Please post your reviews on my blog about the poem as well as my comments. Bye. C U.