Friends
Two quotes came into my mind :
1. "You will waste a lot less time worrying about what others think of you if only you realized how seldom they do." That is why we can say that:
2. "To be happy one must not be too concerned with the opinion of others. One should pursue one's goals single mindedly, with a quiet confidence , without thinking of others."
Most of the time we worry about others be it social, professional or personal matter. We loose focus on our goal and try to behave what others wish. In the process we lost every where. Socially, in Hindu tradition we spend under the pressure to remain one up in society despite the fact that such spending is beyond capacity and also of no use. To impress the society we stretch ourselves to such an extent that it adversely affect the financial health. I have seen in villages , poor farmers are forced to spend much beyond their capacity on the occasion of marriage or post death rituals. One such occasion push them under heavy borrowing from mahajans. Also in educated , upper caste also the spending in marriages go much beyond the capacity and brings the borrowing pressure for a long time.
Professionally our behaviour is always to show off the others. The show off does not allow a professional to do the assignments of so called lower levels. He wants to do but just because of fear of "what others would think about him", he does not. This kind of thinking process closes the opportunity doors.
On personal front, I have noticed such things mainly in cases of personality development. When we do not adopt new technology or update ourselves regularly, later on we repent it and feel shy. Not only this, such technologies influence life so much that we can not afford to keep away and any delay in adoption/updation causes frustration and shyness. We don't show the world about our ignorance and start criticising the value of such technologies. We should understand the fact that there is nothing called delay or late. Knowledge is continuous flow and can be adopted/learnt at any stage of age. It is our own feeling about what people would think about us. If we can get rid of this thought, the life would be much easier and successful.
CP