Skip to main content

Value your support system

Your formal education will equip you with all the knowledge, skills and traits required to lead a successful professional life. Living a fulfilling life is possible only through learning to value your support system. Attitude to learning to respect these pillars of strength will give you an advantage which cannot be quantified. It will show in your output and your general way of being. In times of our parents or before that, we had the joint family system which is perhaps the strongest support system that one can have. We take our parents for granted in many such cases without realizing how important they are for our being able to build lives outside home. That's a separate philosophy which I will discuss some other time. 

However in today's times when we have to step out and move away from our homes to create our future in new cities, this support system has acquired names like Mukta mausi, Seema tai, Noor, Pinky, maharajji, driver saab etc. They are real and are here to stay if you treat them properly. You know I have always employed management theories and learning from workplace to running my household. It seems to work beautifully. To share a few - build trust and show respect; not everyone performs at same levels on all days; people are working with you and not for you; everyone has both good days and bad days; 'me time' is not the privilege of educated and rich alone, everyone needs that for rejuvenating themselves; all helps today have options and its their choice that they are with you, so learn to value them; its a transaction - you have money power, they have physical power; reward behaviors you want to strengthen and have regular review/feedback discussions; take out time and have informal discussions about their family; show you care; take their inputs when planning things in the house or kitchen - build ownership and engagement; be cognizant of their existence as humans, not just employees and so on. 

In any relationship, the person who is more educated and matured is expected to work things out instead of being petty and reactive. In this case it would be you. If things don't seem to work out even after repeated attempts, shake hands and part ways. Like in business world there are no permanent friends or enemies. Its all matter of time. As Gandhiji said "do unto others as you want them to do to you".

When you have a household of your own, implement these...and experience for yourself how it works. 

Ma         





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One Day

It’s a new day but how is it different from what it was yesterday or tomorrow? May be not. It’s only change in date and nothing else. But I am amazed at the power of any new day. It’s the same day…same 24 hours….same morning and night…yet for every person the value it holds is so different. The same day means achievement for some; despair for others; new beginning for some and ending of an era for some. …it is happiness and togetherness for many and separation and hurt for others. The beauty of each day however is the hope that it brings. It turns the tides for all of us. It gives all of us the power to make it different from what it was yesterday. But I wonder how many of us realize this power to change within themselves. This supremacy that has been bestowed on us by nature to shape our today is something that needs to be realized by us. There are so many living things on this earth but we humans are the only ones who can exercise this power. I was reading in an article yesterday
5 comments
Read more

I have a dream....

I often wonder would Wordsworth have written a “Daffodils” or Frost a “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” or Tagore his numerous works if they were living in our times. Armed with gadgets, latest apps and technology would they have felt bored enough to actually step out to experience what they did and more so over physically written it down? I have my doubts, serious ones.  Where is the time to be just aimless and still? We are so busy filling up that unforgiving one minute with myriad activities that we most of the times forget living? Perhaps until and unless dreaming shows some extraordinary gains to make it into our daily ‘to do’ list we would never have time for that. It needs to be added as a subject in the school curriculum for parents to wake up to its importance. The stillness of a cat; flowing of the river; random growing of the wild flowers along the road less taken; sudden showers in midst of nowhere; a smile from a total stranger walking on the road etc. are
6 comments
Read more

Invictus

If you want to enjoy what you have, never look at people above you, look at people below. If you want to count your blessings look at the under-privileged and not the privileged. If you want to succeed look at your own failures to learn from them and not at successes achieved by others. If you want to be loved never look for people who could love you, look for people whom you can love. If you want to be happy never look at what you don't have, cherish what you have. If you want to spread peace and joy, just go ahead and do it. You will be at peace and full of joy. Invictus " is a short Victorian Poem by the English  poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 17. Stoicism inspired him to write this poem. Despite his disabilit
7 comments
Read more