TRUST OR DISBELIEF... |
In our life, we face situations where we are either asked to choose between trust and disbelief. Many of us would say we have to choose trust…Wait!! We are given intellectual capability to choose what we want and what we choose certainly need not be the one that sounds pleasing. That is, we can choose both trust and disbelief, but we have to know when to choose between these two. We should all realize that we are living in a world which is unfortunately teeming with indifferent people, if not cunning. We have been given the faculty of discerning who we are interacting with and who we are partnering with. We cannot give an excuse for believing a scheming/indifferent person, just because he/she looked or sounded nice, unless we settle for considering ourselves mentally inept. This world was there before us and it does not owe a single thing for us. We are asked to take care of ourselves and our belongings; Trust too has to be saved for the deserving people. When we shower trust universally on all, we end up nauseated by the undeserving fraudulence that is prevalent. People say trust is life. True!!! But ONLY wisely exercised trust is life. When we start a discourse with someone, the first things that we usually notice would be their dress, demeanour, style and their language. What sometimes we all forget to look at is the person's intention. Now how to look at a person's intention is a lesson everybody has to learn for themselves in their own way - there is no single standard operating protocol for it. But it is certainly possible to discern the intent if we seek a little bit more. Certainly a spurious offer of friendship or guidance cannot stand unmasked for long; we are therefore called to exercise this factor called disbelief over trust at least temporarily till we find out for ourselves that we certainly are in collaboration with a mutual good willed fellow human and hence, who would be responsible for the repercussions of unwise application of trust - Yes, the person who trusts that way. The world teaches you lots of lessons and if we are willing, we can learn all that we want. Example: There was a sage and one of his disciples asked him, "Teacher, who is the smartest in this world?" The sage called him and asked him to look at a cat that was lying down. He said to the disciple,"Anyone like that cat is the smartest man in the world." The disciple shrugged. The sage asked him to watch the cat and after a couple of minutes, the cat leaped into the air on to what was a small rat a couple of metres away. Then he turned to his disciple and said, "Did you see that cat? It lies down, avoids distractions, waits and then goes toward what might be its prey or play. Anyone who exercises such caution with others is the smartest man." Hence, before placing our trust in someone, it is smart to weigh the person's genuine nature and intent. Let us remind ourselves of what a south Indian philosopher said: |
DO YOU JUDGE TOO QUICKLY? |
| Once upon a time there was one storyteller. After getting tired of telling old fabricated stories, he left his house in search of a real life story. He reached a village and took a cottage for rent. After roaming in the village throughout the month, in search of true story, the storyteller couldn't find one. Disappointed, he decided to stop his search. The next day, while sitting in the cottage, he suddenly heard a voice - a woman was yelling at someone. The voice was coming from the big wall behind his cottage. He tried to hear the conversation; it sounded like the woman was abusing her daughter-in-law. The storyteller didn't like it but he was happy to finally get his story. Listening to the conversations each day he added them to his story. Though he couldn't see the characters of his story, he started hating the Mother-in-law, as she seemed to be villain. Now it was time to finalize the end of the story. But before he did, the storyteller wanted to see the characters once, so he climbed the wall. There he saw the mother-in-law sitting in a wheelchair. It seemed she was handicapped and that the daughter-in-law was resting nearby. He saw the old lady trying to get a food item lying on the table near her chair. But because of her condition, she couldn't reach it and the daughter-in-law looked like she was enjoying the old lady's helplessness. Suddenly the old lady fell from the chair and started abusing her daughter in-law. The storyteller went back and quickly changed the ending of the story and was stunned at how different it was compared to what he originally thought it would be. Truly he had found both a real life story and a real life lesson. Lesson: Never judge a situation unless you know all the aspects well. Sometimes you can't imagine your distance from the reality. |