The Eclectic Zone

It really intrigues me how certain words become taboos, while some other (with the same meaning, mind you) remain acceptable in our civil society.

How is it that a certain word “sh!#” is a strict No-No, while “crap” is still acceptable? How about “Damn it” v/s “Darn it”. Both are just words formed by a combination of alphabets – in the latter example above it’s just one letter replaced with another!

Then, we have euphemisms for almost everything that may not sound so good to the ears or to the sensitive parts of our brain. Some of the euphemisms are needed to reduce the shock factor associated with certain events – our heart being so prone to such. So, we have phrases like “Passed away” or “is no more” instead of a crisp and straight “died”. So far so good, but then we take it a little too far with the literary exhibitionism of being good. If you’re good at heart you would use the right language as they say.

Well, obviously it is for the need for us to be accepted in the circles that we want to belong to. Broader the circle, more generally accepted the behavior needs to be. If you want to be popular with everyone in the world, better be clean as white (and that also explains why every popular celebrity has as many hate sites as fan sites – What one may like others may hate). And the so-called-right language and good mannerisms make for a good facade.  So, that explains why Euphemisms exist.

However, this turns upside down when one goes to a bar with a set of friends (smaller and specific circle). The behavior that is the minimum acceptable behavior outside the bar (that circle) can easily make you a laughing stock! The need for acceptability forces you to be something else. White is suddenly Grey, people doubt who you really are if you’re actually behaving (and may be you are!) all white!!

Okay, after that slight digression, I come back to the taboos. The taboos differ from place to place, age to age, gender to gender, and so on. We don’t have a reason to believe that sex was a taboo in ancient times, then it became a big one, and now it’s somersaulting into gaining a widespread & general acceptability as well – not everywhere but still in general. Certain things have always been sinful though – infidelity and theft, for instance.

But, not every taboo is equivalent to a sin and that’s where I get intrigued. It’s just the words and their usage that really intrigues me. We hear those “beeps” on TV and see these “wild” characters like #$% in print so often for things as mundane as someone talking about need to take a natural call. That’s so natural, why does it become a taboo? And again, why is it that “taking pi$$” is not acceptable while “answering a natural call is”?

I believe too much introspection can cloud the insight. Both seem related but may not always go with each other.

How many times does it happen that we face a situation and come out with a solution that seems so correct, a result of a keen insight. This insight often is a based on our experiences (or observed ones) in similar situations in past, or may have nothing to do with experiences but just plain intellectual ability of the mind to put things together subconsciously.

But, if we’re asked why that solution has to be the best or the one to go for – we’re often stumped. We may not be able to provide justification. But, still the solution seems right. At least, we still have a solution that seems to be correct.

What if in the same situation we were asked to think of all the factors and risks, and are consciously reminded that the implications are huge. We start consciously weighing up all the factors, risks associated – we start introspecting. Our gut is so wrenched it can’t help. The insight suddenly seems to disappear.

I guess above could be true for most of our common situations, are there situations where this may not be true? And why should this happen in the first place? I continue to introspect…

As simple as this equation looks, the altitude that one achieves in life depends “simply” on one’s attitude combined with the aptitude. (It seemed like a eureka moment when I was addressing an audience and believed to have coined this there; Only to realize later that a bunch of others have already written some stuff on this, especially in sports.)

Actually, Attitude is more important in life than anything else. If you’ve got attitude to challenge yourself, achieve in life and work towards your goals, you can develop the required aptitude over time.

So, equation may also look like (but more debatable ) -

ATTITUDE –>> APTITUDE –>> ALTITUDE

But I tend to still go with the simple arithmetic one… which is -

ATTITUDE + APTITUDE = ALTITUDE

Sounds simple, doesn’t it. It really is that simple.

Few years back I had attended this training program with 4 hour capsules of management and leadership learning.

I can’t really evaluate if it really aided to my leadership skills, but one clear lesson I learnt from one of the capsules was on how to respond, and not react, to situations in life – by Zig Ziglar.

This may be subtly related to wearing a positive attitude, but it can be explained simply and followed very easily – so I can avoid all the positivity mumbo-jumbo…

Let’s say you’re driving to work (or shopping!) and another car zooms ahead of you and does more than just this, (say almost caused an accident for you?) and irritates you to hell. You speed up, trying to catch up and at least gesture and make him realize what he almost did. You do everything to whiz past the traffic and go side by side while making gestures, without realizing you almost caused few more accidents by doing so. For all you know, you may end up with a bad mood to work (or even worse at shopping if you were headed that way)…

Who was this person that you’re trying to teach this lesson to? Have you, ever in life, met this person? Is there a chance you would meet this person again? (And, even if that happens, just pray he did not end up as the potential recruiter for a job that you would love to get.) What would you have achieved if you succeeded in making him realize his mistake on road?

Or consider a scenario where you just smile and pray for his good. OR even laugh at the foolishness that you just witnessed on road and the fact that there are so many buffoons on road that you don’t need to buy a ticket to watch them in action.

By reacting to a situation we handover the control of our destiny to someone or something else that has nothing to do with us. A car driver that you don’t even know, beyond having a glimpse for 2 seconds, cannot decide what happens to your day, and life.

Take control. Respond, and not react to situations. And do it every time you have to…!