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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, November 12, 2017
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“PEOPLE who need people,” so an old song affirms, “are the luckiest people in the world.”
This is especially true in the business world where you have to force yourself to like hard-to-please customers in order to win their confidence and patronage.
If you are the boss, you need to be in good terms with employees, suppliers, customers, and government agencies.
If you are a hired hand, you have no choice but to be in good terms with the boss, co-workers and everybody else in the organization.
If you get married, you lose individual freedoms to coexist with another individual in exchange for “marital bliss” and a “happy we” family life.
Famous American book author Robert Ringer wrote, “Even if you were to attempt to live a Thoreau-type life in the wilderness — a prospect that sounds rather boring — you still would find the need to talk to people from time to time. Food and medical care are two obvious reasons why.”
No matter how an individual is raised, the transition from childhood to adulthood can never refute the assumed reality that no one is perfect. We learn early on in childhood that a teacher may give a student a wrong grade for a right answer just because she dislikes him; or parents may play favorites among their children.
And so we get disappointed over “unfair treatment” from relying too much on another person. The more we rely on someone, the more we see his imperfection without realizing that they must have seen our imperfection, too.
On the brighter side, it compels us to be self-reliant and non-judgmental of others.
We have learned from Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” that people are programmed at birth to be selfish. This means that whatever good we do to others is commensurate with their usefulness to us. Imagine what would happen if we feed others to the point of starving ourselves. There is no absolute altruism – defined as “unselfish concern for other people’s happiness and welfare.”
If we choose to receive the best of whatever from our friends and relatives, it could lead to frustration and despair.
Whereas, accepting human nature as it really is makes us focus on actions that also create value for others.
People do not easily shed off ingrained habits and beliefs. I saw this for myself recently when I received a Hindu literature in the e-mail. Try hard as I did, I could not swallow its recommendation to worship the elephant god Ganesh in exchange for good fortune.
Conversely, the Hindus could not be forced to worship Jesus Christ.
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,” says one of my favorite lines from Dale Carnegie’s classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People:
Still, people may change due to unforeseen circumstances. I saw this in my Uncle George, who had served a decade in New Bilibid. On the day he got out of jail, he sought my father for advice on how to keep cool. It was his bad temper that had caused him to shoot and paralyze his employer for life.
It is therefore wise to select business associates, friends, and spouses on the basis of common values. Incompatibility breeds dislike. For instance, a marriage between a rabid Catholic and a rabid Protestant may trigger frequent arguments, ending in a broken home. It’s a perfect mismatch.
We become hypocritical when we pretend to “adjust” to people with ideas and beliefs contrary to ours.
To quote Robert Ringer once more, “All people, at one time or another, deviate from their moral beliefs; they are sometimes hypocritical. More often than not, the cause is the desire for instant gratification.”
From French novelist Victor Hugo (1802-1885) we read, “Prosperity supposes capacity. Win in the lottery and you are an able man.” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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