When Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden, there was peace and tranquility everywhere. The asp could not stand this and whispered something to Eve. She tempted Adam with an apple and as if that was not enough, donned a fig leaf in a strategic location. Eve thus became the first manager. the term 'manager' is apt for nothing ages more than a woman.
Then came Abel and Cain. Cain slew Abel for fear that he would inherit only half the earth. Thus when a lack is felt, a manager springs up. Insecurity is an important causative factor in a person's need to dominate his fellow beings. Just as it is very difficult to be idle for a long time or to sit consciously without thinking, it is very difficult not to dominate, not to manage.
The urge to manage is a "Rajasi Guna". Though not a "Tamasi guna", it is not a "Satvik Guna" either. One can not be saintly so long as one has a compulsive need to manage others. One who has this urge is basically a weaker person than his fellow beings. You do not envy managers, you merely sympathise with them.Love good managers as you love good women. Do not hate bad managers as it does not behove a man to hate woman.
The extent to which we wish tomanage others, bears a fair co-relation to the extent of feminity in a person. No man is all masculine barring the mythical Arjuna.
Now, the point is how not to manage ? Management schools take two years to teach people how to manage even though the motivation to do so is present in most weak men. i shall tell you how not to manage. Like all habits, trying to kick the habit can cause repressions. Do not therefore try suddenly not to manage. The best way to cure yourself of this habit is to manage fully to your heart's content till you reach the highest position on the earth if not the universe. Fear of being dominated by others will take you higher and higher.
Once you have reached your level of incompetence, you would rise no further. You might have become the Chairman of a company but you would chafe under the glare of president of a bigger and mightier multinational company.
Once you have managed everything, the downgrade would start. However hard you try, you may not succeed. If you have been the President of the United Nations, you might have to be satisfied with merely the Presidency of a country.
On the contrary, if you try to avoid managing even what comes to your lot, you would find yourself a harassed man. If you do nothing, you may find yourself managing a lot more than you did when you were active.
a realization would then dawn on you that happiness in totality is the same for everyone. You would then do whatever comes to your lot with happiness and all that Gita or for that matter, any religious scripture preaches, would come naturally to you to practise.You would enjoy managing those to be managed by you and enjoy being managed by those who can not help managing yoYou might well ask me if I am not trying to manage the managers by writing this. The answer is yes and no. Yes, to those who however hard I try, are not going to believe me. No, to those who would believe me, when I say that I wrote this primarily for my enjoyment. If you too enjoy it, I would have reason to respect you !
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2011
PREETY, OUR HOUSE MANAGER
Preety, our daughter is a spastic. I might enlighten all those of you who do not know what a spastic or a patient of Cerebral Palsy is.
A spastic is an individual who is fully developed mentally. In some respects, they are perhaps even more developed than average human beings.The word spastic owes its origin to the word 'spasm' or jerky movement. Muscular co-ordination is lacking in spastics. Their movements are jerky and quite often they can not make the smooth normal movements of their feet or hands or for that matter any of their limbs including the tongue.
Our brain has many departments. Some control our vision, some smell, some memory and so on. There is one that controls the co-ordination of voluntary muscles. We have voluntary muscles and involuntary muscles. Involuntary muscles are those, for example that come into play when we instictively withdraw our handswhen we accidentally touch a hot object. Voluntary muscles are those that we use consciously for carrying out some task. The centre of the brain that co-ordinates our voluntary muscles i.e. the one that makes the limbs to do what we want them to do is the one that is affected in the spastics. It does not work properly. As per present knowledge, when this function is paralysed due to one or more of any number of reasons, the person becomes a spastic.
My guess is that they either belong to a different species than the ones from which the present day human beings evolved. It is also possible that they are humans belonging to a different time scale, something on the lines of extra-terrestrial (ET) beings. We may call them extra-chronological (EC) beings.
Whatever it be, Preety is a spastic. She can not stand up, walk, sit up properly, eat or dress by herself. She can not even speak. Communication with her is by gestures or by asking questions whether this is what she means. By shaking her head she indicates yes or no. We have to find out what she wants by the reductio ad absurdum method!
She is either in bed or in a wheel chair all the time. She is fond of current Hindi film music, likes to listen to the radio or watch TV. Her reactions to films shown on TV are quite normal for a girl of her age. She likes the company of girls of her age, is extremely fond of her brothers and makes no bones about being partial to our elder son.
Whenever anything is misplaced in the house, we only ask her and as she observes everyone in the house, she is able to tell us where the misplaced article is. When a particular maternal aunt of mine visits us, she immediately instructs her mother to bring tea and Paan. Similarly, when my paternal aunt visits us, she is never allowed to go without partaking of a meal. The reason is that the aunt like her own self is a daughter of the family and traditions must be observed. She recognizes the steps of my elder brother on the staircase and makes a sound reserved only for him.
We can not scold anyone younger than her as it is her prerogative. the hierarchy must be maintained. If we intervene in any quarrel between her and her brothers, even if we take her side, she turns against us. she makes use of all the tricks at her command to see that her brothers study.
She remembers the birthdays of everyone in the family and begins planning the guest list, the menu and so on much in advance. The birthday boy or girl as the case may be must be kept out of all the planning as the celebration and the birthday gift must be a surprise. The gift has to be handed over by none other than herself.
Her sense of timing is very good as if a watch is implanted in her brain. She asks us to switch on the radio or the TV for her favourite programs without looking at the clock and is always right when she says that it is time for a particular program.
Previously she tried to manage the entire household whether it was cooking or looking after the guests. gradually, it has come down and now she tries to manage only those activities that are relevant to her. her every action tells us that she has perhaps been a manager in a previous form or birth.
Sometimes I wonder if our present day managers or leaders in any walk of life or for that matter our politicians would become spastics in some future birth. Think over. Similarities are many.
In reality, she is like a piece of modern abstract art. Only the painter knows what it is and that too at the time of painting it. In her case, God, our maker alone knows or knew while making her. It surely is not common to be a common man.
A spastic is an individual who is fully developed mentally. In some respects, they are perhaps even more developed than average human beings.The word spastic owes its origin to the word 'spasm' or jerky movement. Muscular co-ordination is lacking in spastics. Their movements are jerky and quite often they can not make the smooth normal movements of their feet or hands or for that matter any of their limbs including the tongue.
Our brain has many departments. Some control our vision, some smell, some memory and so on. There is one that controls the co-ordination of voluntary muscles. We have voluntary muscles and involuntary muscles. Involuntary muscles are those, for example that come into play when we instictively withdraw our handswhen we accidentally touch a hot object. Voluntary muscles are those that we use consciously for carrying out some task. The centre of the brain that co-ordinates our voluntary muscles i.e. the one that makes the limbs to do what we want them to do is the one that is affected in the spastics. It does not work properly. As per present knowledge, when this function is paralysed due to one or more of any number of reasons, the person becomes a spastic.
My guess is that they either belong to a different species than the ones from which the present day human beings evolved. It is also possible that they are humans belonging to a different time scale, something on the lines of extra-terrestrial (ET) beings. We may call them extra-chronological (EC) beings.
Whatever it be, Preety is a spastic. She can not stand up, walk, sit up properly, eat or dress by herself. She can not even speak. Communication with her is by gestures or by asking questions whether this is what she means. By shaking her head she indicates yes or no. We have to find out what she wants by the reductio ad absurdum method!
She is either in bed or in a wheel chair all the time. She is fond of current Hindi film music, likes to listen to the radio or watch TV. Her reactions to films shown on TV are quite normal for a girl of her age. She likes the company of girls of her age, is extremely fond of her brothers and makes no bones about being partial to our elder son.
Whenever anything is misplaced in the house, we only ask her and as she observes everyone in the house, she is able to tell us where the misplaced article is. When a particular maternal aunt of mine visits us, she immediately instructs her mother to bring tea and Paan. Similarly, when my paternal aunt visits us, she is never allowed to go without partaking of a meal. The reason is that the aunt like her own self is a daughter of the family and traditions must be observed. She recognizes the steps of my elder brother on the staircase and makes a sound reserved only for him.
We can not scold anyone younger than her as it is her prerogative. the hierarchy must be maintained. If we intervene in any quarrel between her and her brothers, even if we take her side, she turns against us. she makes use of all the tricks at her command to see that her brothers study.
She remembers the birthdays of everyone in the family and begins planning the guest list, the menu and so on much in advance. The birthday boy or girl as the case may be must be kept out of all the planning as the celebration and the birthday gift must be a surprise. The gift has to be handed over by none other than herself.
Her sense of timing is very good as if a watch is implanted in her brain. She asks us to switch on the radio or the TV for her favourite programs without looking at the clock and is always right when she says that it is time for a particular program.
Previously she tried to manage the entire household whether it was cooking or looking after the guests. gradually, it has come down and now she tries to manage only those activities that are relevant to her. her every action tells us that she has perhaps been a manager in a previous form or birth.
Sometimes I wonder if our present day managers or leaders in any walk of life or for that matter our politicians would become spastics in some future birth. Think over. Similarities are many.
In reality, she is like a piece of modern abstract art. Only the painter knows what it is and that too at the time of painting it. In her case, God, our maker alone knows or knew while making her. It surely is not common to be a common man.
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