There are all kinds of people in the world and everyone provokes some kind of thoughts and emotions inside you. Well some can be not-so-thought-provoking as well! hehe
Some times i see some people, and you can see that they just assume superiority. Sometimes may be based on how they grew up, or sometimes from which part of world they come from, sometimes how well they did in school and that sometimes list goes on.
How you have been brought up plays very important role ofcourse, sometimes you get things you never had or imagined in life before and so when you face them it gets overwhelming. That time the values you held comes handy to help you keep your feet firm rooted.
When I was dwelling on these thoughts it reminded me of my own experiences. If it wasn't for all the experiences in life, we would be still those frogs in the well. It was an experience to study in India, (as it would be anywhere in the world) and fun as well.
When we were in engineering college and did any fun/ mischievous things students will do in that age, our professors kept reminding us "you are engineers and this is not how you behave" so it kept coming to that you are suppose to be this or that way. When you keep listening that all the time directly or indirectly it trains mind to think ohh we are some great species, more intelligent, superior to others!!
I remember our head of the department telling us "if this is how you wanted to behave, you are at a wrong college, better go and join adjoining college." (That happened to be “just” an arts and commerce college)
Time flew and we all graduated, proud to be engineers. Some decided to start their professional lives and some decided to study further.
I took up MBA; it was a batch with maximum number of engineers. Initially as the year progressed the class seemed to be split in those groups according to educational backgrounds. Engineers thought that they were superiors and will remain together in a group and Commerce guys used to think they were some egoistic creatures suffering from superiority complex. By the way this also was no good as now we were always reminded that “you are going to be future managers, this is not how you behave” or simply “maintain the decorum of XYZ School”.
But this time our own experience helped us. As soon as first semester was in full fledge with all blend of different subject the differences within started to fad away.
Engineers started having difficulties with accounts and Commerce guys with subjects related to Operations and Production Management etc.
They started helping each other. Engineers realized they are not superior when they couldn't answer all the questions asked in economics and accounting. As time passed both learned, both helped each other and it blended so nicely. And when one enters the professional life, there is no way to survive is you close yourself in the shell of superiority. Those experience taught this very important lesson of life that every one is special, everyone knows something that you can learn from.
Lesson which is still helping me and may be most important one to survive and live happily in today's world.
Being jealous or just staying aloof in your complex whether superiority on inferiority won't help, but learning from others and enhancing yourself will.
5 comments:
Nice thoughts here, Lopa. It is all so true!!
Stunning post Lopa di. True learnings. This superiority complex thing exists more among people who collaborates less with other people. Although I've seen this mentality more among our university going senior students and teachers than people in my workplace. Once we enter the real world, the realization comes that we learning is a continuous process through everyday struggle. If we get stuck with our "superiority", our knowledge level would stuck too.
@Aledys Ver,
One of those days you know, rambling down the memory lane with the chain of thoughts :)
@Shomoita,
Totally agree. Look at even senior junior thing in universities, even one year ahead of you will behave as a superior and when they both join he same organisation, the equations change immediately with both of them colleagues. (As long as other hasn't been promoted already)
You cannot survive in today's competitive world living life of a "frog inside the well". One needs to be more open to new things and ideas. Accept, learn, grow.
Very interesting post. I enjoyed it very much, and totally agree with you. I know a woman in Norway who was living with a man from the Gaza Strip. But he was deported with no country to call his own. Very sad!
BTW, Emily {Alice} was killed in a car accident in December, so I tried to take over her blog {I am her sister-in -law} but I found that it just wasn't working out as I had hoped, so I started a new on in her memory.
http://ladyofmuse.blogspot.com/
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