What the upcoming Trump Presidency teaches us about the futility of angst and bitterness

Arguing endlessly and being bitter is not going to change any reality.

Suddenly, the US of A is divided. Shockingly polarized. I have been to that great country so many, many times. And I love the people there immensely. Our son lives there, just as several members of our extended families do. Yet, I have never seen so much division out there, ever.

Just look at your Facebook feed and you will know what I mean. So many, many, many people hate Trump and fear ‘his’ America. Yet, an apparent majority sentiment against him, and all the fear-mongering and protesting, isn’t going to prevent Trump’s inauguration on January 20^th next year. His election is an act of people’s will, of a duly laid out constitutional process. No amount of debate is going to change it. No protests are going to make things any better or different for the protestors.

Free speech is enshrined in most democracies in the world. And USA’s is a beautiful, thriving democracy. Yet, even as people are expressing themselves freely, there’s a great deal of angst and intolerance that’s visible, palpable. Political ideology has divided people at a social level. And that’s a sad thing to happen. I believe a conversation that cannot allow a candid, calm and constructive discussion is not a mature one. What we all have to recognize is that whether someone supports one leader or the other, the core issue here is that everyone want better leadership. Each one feels the person he or she is inspired by is a better leader. Now, if you don’t support someone’s choice of leadership, discuss and debate about the leader and leadership – don’t rubbish the person you debate with hoping to win an avoidable, vitriolic argument. This serves no purpose. Actually, honestly, even social media posts serve no purpose in such debates. But they do serve as a means of expressing ourselves freely. Such expression must be respected and any personal or acerbic remarks must be avoided ideally and surely expunged!

I have learnt that arguments over anything – not just over a political or academic or religious or ideological viewpoint – serve no purpose. They end up raising the decibel level and increasing acrimony. An argument is really an ego game. It is always fought over who is right than what is right. Interestingly, at a deeply spiritual level, even right and wrong is relative. What may be right to someone may always appear wrong to someone else. Or what may be right now to someone may appear to be wrong to the same person at another time. So, when what is right is debatable, what’s the point in deciding – that too, over a painful, often wasted, argument – who is right?

Osho, the Master, explains this beautifully: “Life is not divided into black and white – a lot of it is more like gray. And if you see very deeply, white is one extreme of gray and black is another extreme, but the expanse is of gray. So one can see it as white and one can see it as black. It is as if a glass is there, half full, half empty. Somebody says it is half full and this is the truth and somebody says it is half empty and this is the truth… and they start fighting. All arguments are more or less like that.”

The upcoming Trump Presidency offers us all a chance to evolve into being more tolerant. There’s an opportunity here for us to learn to avoid the urge to belligerently argue. And stop wanting to be right and to be seen as right. If you have an opinion that is fair and constructive, and if you think all parties in the discussion will have the maturity to accept it, express it. If you believe that maturity is lacking in the forum, exercise your right to not participate. Ideally every perspective shared in a discussion must be constructive and must create value. If you can’t ensure that, it’s a simpler and intelligent response to just remain silent.

PS: If you liked this blogpost, please share it to help spread the learning it carries!

 

Wanting the world to be perfect, your way, is what brings you agony!

If your inner peace is being ruined, ask yourself if a confrontation is really worth it?

A businessman I met yesterday said he was forever on tenterhooks. Because, he said, he is always fighting for ‘what is right’. He fights his brother’s reckless decisions in the business that they jointly operate, he is fighting for a parking space, that he legitimately owns, with his apartment builder, he is fighting for an Income Tax refund with the authority for over 10 years now and he is fighting within himself unable to reconcile to the surge of Hindutva and communal strife in the country. Phew! He asked me what he must do to be peaceful.

“Meditate.” This is what I told him.

But the last thing that will come easy, when you mind is agitated and firing on all cylinders, is meditation.

I have been the way this man is right now. So I know.

Our sense of morality, propriety, integrity and intention often wants us to demand a fair world. Besides, the human mind is wired, through years of conditioning, to point out to you that you are always right; that while everyone around you is either doing wrong or doing only what appears to be right, you, and you alone, are the messiah who is clamoring to do what is right. Any definition of right and wrong involves individual judgment and perception. What may be right to you may be wrong from another’s point of view. So, the moment you get into this ‘I-am-right’ mode, you have launched into an endless, zero-sum game! This is how, for many years, I vexed over trying to create a better world – for me, around me. I discovered, through catharsis, that there is nothing wrong with wanting an ethical, fair, egalitarian environment around you. Except that you mustn’t try to create it at the cost of losing your inner peace. Anything that demands a fight that disturbs your inner equilibrium is simply not worth it.

So, fight the good fight, take up causes, choose issues that you want to campaign for, but first win your inner battle. Nothing in the world, nothing in Life, is worth more than your inner peace. If you are at peace, you will have the energy to face the world, you will have stamina to last any crusade and you will have the focus to devise and execute a winning strategy.

Do what you must do in any situation but do it only if you can be detached from the outcomes. Invest in the process, but be detached from the outcomes. Often the biggest hurdle to an individual’s evolution is the desire to want to control outcomes, to prove oneself right and to hold on to opinions. Focusing on the merits of each experience is perhaps a good way to ascertain and convince yourself if such clinging on is really worth it. So, I always recommend a three-step check before you take up any issue that you want to invest your energy in:

1. Will what you are fighting for really matter some years from now?
2. What is best for all parties involved – letting go or proving yourself right?
3. Which stance – letting go or clinging on – will help preserve your inner peace?

This approach has helped me immensely. I have come to realize that wanting a perfect world is not a wrong expectation. But you wanting to create this perfect world your way, well, that’s a stance you may want to rethink and, perhaps, even avoid. Instead, choose an intelligent approach, which is, decide on whatever you do, or want to do, basis your inner peace being first protected. So, ask yourself, each time before you launch into an ‘I-am-right’ mode, if it is really worth it?

Why the man who lives by the ‘serve to deserve’ principle deserves a chance

To do what’s right than what appears to be right is a deeply spiritual and personal choice that we must all learn to make.  

I don’t write on politics. So this post is not about the political context of the occasion – the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Raja Krishnamoorthy

This post is about a man who I have known for close to two decades now and who I have great admiration for: Raja Krishnamoorthy. He’s a HR Thought Leader by learning and from experience, he’s an actor by choice and a lover of Life – intuitively inspired by people and nature. He’s now an Independent candidate for the Velachery Assembly Constituency that covers a substantial part of South Chennai including Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur and Besant Nagar. Through this post, I share the Life lessons that I have learnt from Raja and perhaps, through my sharing, you may get an intimate and personal view of who the man is. (Disclosure/Disclaimer: I don’t live in the Velachery Constituency area and Raja is not aware that I am writing this blogpost!)

Raja and I work in the same space – HR, Organizational Transformation, Change Management. Both of us are well-known speakers and are often invited to deliver Talks at various forums. But that’s today. If I am an inspired speaker or a respected professional in the HR and Workplace Happiness (our niche) arena, it is only because Raja has enriched me with his presence and given me the space to grow. I have literally learnt sitting at his feet. Now unless a guru allows such an opportunity how can any shishya ever evolve? So, Raja’s greatest quality is that he’s deeply compassionate. He’s a genuine, self-less giver.

Raja is not someone who wants to impress anyone either with his expressiveness as an actor or his oratorical brilliance. Whatever he says comes from deep within him, from his soul – so it resonates instantaneously with anyone who is seeking and is tuned in. He taught me the value of learning to first ‘serve’ before you say that you ‘deserve’. Until he pointed it out to me, I didn’t quite realize that the word ‘deserve’ would be impossible to spell without ‘serve’ in it. But he urged me to look beyond the spelling and construction of the word. He taught me to understand the opportunity in offering oneself to the Universe, every single time we do something. It may be the work we do, it may the food we make, it may be gardening, it may be tipping someone who’s been helpful, it may be singing or it may be delivering a Talk or taking a picture – whatever you do, offer it as a service. When my wife Vaani and I began a cathartic phase (that we are still enduring) of our Life, this ‘serve to deserve’ principle of Raja’s helped us anchor ourselves. We are still struggling to put our bankrupt business back on track, trying to be successful in a financial and material way, but success (per the worldly sense) is eluding us. So, employing Raja’s principle, we flipped the paradigm and decided to be useful and not just try to be successful. So, we engage with people and communities every single day – even if it is not financially rewarding – and serve by sharing what we have learnt from Life. {I have acknowledged this paradigm shift in detail, and Raja’s role in it, in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland).} Raja lives by the ‘serve to deserve’ principle, every moment of every single day!

The third, and perhaps most significant, quality about Raja is that he truly fits management guru Noel Tichy’s definition of leadership – he has the ability to see reality and mobilize the appropriate response. So, his leadership skills are not confined by space or time. They are driven by his deep sense of purpose to serve and his unquestionable personal integrity. If he sees something as right he will do it, no matter what. And if he sees something as wrong he will stand up against it. He has the courage – not bravado – to say what he wants to say. I remember, during the 2014 general elections, at a time when there was considerable euphoria over the meteoric rise of the Aam Aadmi Party, he took a principled stand to withdraw from supporting the party’s campaign in Chennai. But he did that by openly writing to Arvind Kejriwal. He didn’t say an extra word and nor did he flirt with other political opportunities. He simply went back to doing what he loves doing – which is living fully, excited about Life, each moment. And there’s a learning here on leadership again – a great leader is one who not only knows what to do and when to do it, but also clearly knows what not to do and why not to do it too!

I believe that within the three qualities of compassion, the willingness to serve and purpose-driven, values-based leadership that Raja has, we, as a people, have an opportunity. There may be the oft-repeated argument that electing one Independent candidate cannot change a well-entrenched and horribly-wrongly-engineered political system. So it may appear to be right to ignore the value that an Independent brings to the table. But engaging with Raja means being part of the change we so desperately seek. It means making that deeply spiritual and personal choice to be the change ourselves. To do what’s right than what appears to be right.