Price of Peer Pressure

Some days ago my sister called me to say that she had a bad news for me; she said that she had quit her job and was sitting idle at home. Hers was a temporary job, and she was paid a daily wage, as is the custom with many of the medium sized and small nursing homes, who do not want to get into commitment with their nurses, and this is the third nursing home that my sister was working at. Since there are so many young girls looking for a job, the homes take it as advantage, to reduce their wages as low as possible. So apparently there was a stir among the nurses of this particular nursing home, and they demanded from the administration a higher wage for their duties. When the administration refused to give heed to their appeal, all the nurses resigned en masse.

There was peer-pressure, and it is hard to fight against peer-pressure in such a situation, since all of them help each other during their respective duties and exchange duty hours according to their conveniences. But at the other end of the spectrum is the loss of job. My sister would not demand a higher wage, she is not that courageous, but one or two of the courageous nurses might have coerced the others too to resign, and my sister was helpless, and was forced to tender resignation. Her friends are not going to help her get a better job, with better working hours, and a better wage. That may be none of their business, but ultimately who suffers. Peer-pressure is such a thing, where one is placed like a cat on the wall, standing between devil and deep sea.

Given the situation at home, my sister was badly in need of a job to make both ends meet, and sitting idly at home is not something she would like. There was a tone of sadness even as she narrated to me that she was waiting for a call from some other nursing home where she had applied. It is not easy to sit in the house doing nothing very substantial. One may even feel bored and wasting away, and that was what was happening to my sister, and all that I could encourage was to call up the very nursing home where she had resigned the job and check if they cared to take her back. She was not keen on doing that, because in that case she might lose her credibility and face. However she said she was ready to accept the offer if they called her back.

Going with a group has its advantages, especially if there are persons in the group who really care for me, and would support me come what may; but it also has its gray areas. It is a very delicate issue and there are chances for one to be wrong whatever he/she does. But it would be wrong to go with the group all the times, because one or two members of the group may divert the interests of the group and make use of it for their own benefit. The ultimate question that one must ask is this : does my flowing with the group going to help me now or later? If the answer is in the negative, then probably I should reconsider my following the dictates of the group. My conscience may be the better judge some times, and I should listen to it as and when I feel that way.

It is hard to stand by one’s conviction and resist the pressures of a group, especially if the group pressure could force one to give up personal convictions. But this is not impossible; what one may require is great amount of guts and courage to stand by personal convictions. It might have been alright if my sister had stood against the pressure of the group to resign, and resumed her job as usual. She might have to bear the dire consequences, but that could win the appreciation of the administration for her, not so much because she stayed back to work for them, but also because she had the courage to stand against group pressure. Sometimes it is worthwhile to stand by one’s convictions and resist the temptation of flowing with the group.

Dance of the Peacock

Sometimes it is difficult to say the truth, especially when we know that the truth is sure to prick the conscience of the listener. There are many whose conscience are made of thick skin, and so they may not mind whatever people tell about them, and we shall leave them in peace and would not venture to disturb them for a while. We do not say that people of this sort can be left scot free, just because they are stiff-necked people who would not listen to any one, even if God the Father were to appear before them and ask them to change. We have to find some way of letting them know that they cannot decide for the whole world; at least once in a while, they have to be human.

Today is the golden jubilee of a few nuns, and I had been invited to attend the celebrations, which is comprised of the Eucharist presided over by the archbishop, felicitation to the jubilarians, a dance drama of Tagore and festive dinner. I could make out that it would take at least five hours to complete these programs, and I did not want to waste my time sitting there doing nothing. It is not that going to attend the program would be useless, but I thought if it would be worthwhile. It would have been an occasion for me to meet some of my friends, and I had known at least two of the jubilarians, who wanted me to attend the function. But one of the most important questions that I was asking myself is : should I go there to attend the function, just to please some?

Yesterday as I visited the place and told one of the friends there that I would not be going for today’s program, she told me I could not afford to miss the program. After a little while, one of the most famous jubilarian came to tell me that I should attend the celebrations, since I was partly involved with the preparations. When I told her that I would not, then she jokingly said they would not be able to forgive me if I miss the program and dinner, for which I retorted I would not require their forgiveness. Later on the hind sight, I thought I should not have been so blunt to the nun, but I found no other way of communicating to her what I hope to tell her one day.

I was told that some 600 to 700 persons would take part in the dinner today, and I was just imagining how much it would cost to feed all of them, and having known the way how these nuns host dinners, I am quite sure it would cost them a fortune. Theirs is a poor congregation with a very limited resources, and I was told that all the convents of the congregation would be required to contribute for the celebration. Some of the convents are too poor to contribute, and yet they would have no other option to dish out from their bare necessity for the dinner. I was asking myself if such a dinner should be organized at all?

Often such dinners and programs are organized to show off, and to exhibit to others how important they are. I would have readily agreed to join them for fifty golden years of service to God and people, if the celebration were organized in a small-scale with only some friends and acquintances. I know that my attending or not attending the celebrations is not going to change any of their programs; they all will go on as planned; but I would be able to share with them the real reasons for my not attending the program, if they wished to listen to me. I had seen the dance of peacocks, and do not require to see yet another one dancing!

Fear Factor (2) - Enemy within

On several significant moments of life, I have realized that I have been let down by an arch enemy, who has been following me wherever I went, whatever I did: myself, my inner self, my conscience, my mind, or my spirit! I may have a dozen names to describe how frightened I am to myself. I am not afraid of anyone on earth as I dread my inner self. It is paradoxical and even ironical to realize that I am afraid of myself, the one I know like the back of my palm! It really sounds ridiculous, but that is the fact! I cannot trust myself, I cannot believe in self, and I cannot predict how I would respond to a particular situation! I am so very unpredictable that I am frightened of myself!

But what am I afraid of, and why should I? The answers for these two questions are not as simple as the questions may sound! I may liken my innerself to a most sophisticated database, which processes every proposal I make in the light of the past experiences, correlates to them, and provides me an alternative that I should choose. Invariably the self would not permit me to choose something that is not in the database, but only that has been earlier registered. In that case, if I venture to choose something new, the mind puts a sense of fear, and later this is converted to guilt, leading to half a dozen ill-feelings which prematurely kill life spirit in me!

The fact is, before I begin to be frightened of others, however powerful they be, I am frightened of myself, and it would require far more courageous and energetic affirmation to convince one's inner self and come out to face reality! The enemy outside of me is not as horrendous and fearsome as the one inside of me. But is not there a way to free myself from the fears which may paralyse me for eternity, and face life as it comes to me? Of course there is a simple way, if we are prepared to give a try! Dissociate oneself from the chains of the past, and one is free from the fears which had kept oneself under control for years.

But why should our inner selves take refuge in the past experiences, be they positive or negative? The answer is rather simple: the self has to have certain anchor points, where it can place itself, when there are external attacks, and most often the past experiences provide such anchor points; these are so-called secure, safe-zones, but one may forget that in the long run these anchor points may become our chains. Dissociating oneself from the past experiences may not be as simple; but one may surely try to become conscious of what the past experiences could do to one's present.

Anyone who is frightened of one's inner self is sure to end up with defeat, because even the worst coward can defeat the most ferocious hero who has been defeated by own's own inner self. At the same time, even the best of external enemies cannot defeat the one who has freed himself/herself from the clutches of the inner self. Is it hard to dissociate ourselves from our past? It should not be, because unless we dissociate ourselves from the past, we cannot authentically live the present; anyone who has not left behind the baggage of the past, cannot taste freedom, happiness and peace.

Frowning at Fear

Is there any person on earth, who is not afraid of any thing under the sky? If ever there is one, then I would be tempted to take my hats off to him/her, whoever that be! It is not that I don't believe there can be a person who is completely fearless. We may come across one in a thousand, who can frighten even the worst of all enemies, the death! But I realize that there is nothing more dangerous and more crippling to life than fear, and if we think seriously about what we are afraid of, we may be surprised to know that most often we do not know what we are afraid of. Because once we know what we are afraid of, then the fear takes leave of us immediately.

Often we are frightened of phantoms of our imagination, which have no correspondence to reality outside. In other words, what we are afraid of, are the creation of our imagination! Some may say that the fears have their origin in hallucinations and hallucinogens and phantasmagoria! The words may sound too big, but what they say is this: we create our own phantoms, which threaten to kill us at a time when we are weak and vulnerable. One of the ways how to over come fear is by confronting the phantoms squarely. Ask yourself, what am I afraid of! No vague answers, but direct concrete answers. If this exercise is repeated three times, then the fear may not be there at all.

But we need to face a more vital question: how and why do I create phantoms of my imagination? The answer is rather simple: we cannot face raw reality, because it is too frightening, and life-threatening. We would like to face sugar-coated reality, something that is mild and gentle. So our mind creates phantoms according to our liking, and these phantoms cannot kill us, because they survive on our fear; but they can lead us to situations where we feel helpless and need to fall back on to them. One way of tackling them is, by realizing that they are as frightened of us as we are frightened of them.

Fear of known things and persons are more within the purview of our control, while fear of unknown is something that is more dangerous. The fear of the unknown can strike at a time when the person least expects, and the the consequences could be quite costly. It will be beneficient to think that most of the fear, which are based on unknown persons and things and events, will lead us to some known fear, because we human beings cannot think in a vacuum.

One way how to treat people with fear of any sort is to look at their fears from rational point of view. The very fact that most of the fears are based on irrational, imaginary concoctions, they are easy to tackle. Take for instance, if a person is afraid of ghosts, start analysing this fear: has the person every seen one? when, where and how? has anyone else seen it? These are questions which can make the person realise that the fear was simply the creation of his/her mind. But there is a fear which is not easy to tackle, and it may take quite a while to really overcome: fear of oneself, of one's conscience, of consciousness! But that is an altogether different story!

Et tu Brute!

These memorable words of Julius Caeser to his most trusted friend Brutus, when the latter plunged the dagger onto the chest of the Emperor to show the world what is the price of trust! Betrayal has no limits, whoever it is, and whatever be his/her position, it is the same story all over. Like blood which is red for all in the world, so to is betrayal is the name that everyone in the world is familiar with. But we are happy until it one day lands before our door steps.

When my young friend shared how hours and hours of her hard work had been misappropriated by her research guide, there is hardly any words of consolation I could think of. Some times silence is the best means of consoling a person; but the sense of seniority and even superiority (under some guise or other) over takes our common sense, and we climb the pulpit and indulge shamelessly in sermonising, forgetting the fact that for the one who is the victim of betrayal of a cruel kind, no words can be as soothing as just standing by her and assuring that all is not lost.

But how can he be so devoid of a conscience? This is the one question that she kept on posing to me, and probably even the person who took his young research student for a royal ride would be unable to give an adequate answer to this question. Does one scheme to betray a close associate, a bosom friend, a blood relative? Betrayal, probably, is in our blood, and whatever we do, it may pop up the moment when we least expect it.

Can we do anything to really not to fall victim to betrayal by people we trust so much? Is it at all possible to mistrust the people we love, just because they have the potentiality to betray us one day? But one thing is for sure, we cannot take people on their face value; we need to put them to acid test to check and examine if they deserve our whole hearted trust. But even then we cannot be sure that they will not betray us one day! That is how humanity is shaped and molded.

Some of the great personalities in the annals of history have experienced the worst kind of betrayal, and the way how each of them respond to the people who betray them is quite interesting. The case we could imagine at this moment is that of Jesus; how he chides Judas Iscariot who betrays him with a kiss! This is irony of ironies. There is no cursing and yelling, but a quiet acknowledgment of what reality is. Sometimes there is no better way to over come the pain of betrayal than by just submitting ourselves to it! For the people who indulge in betrayal are sure one day to pay for it.