Influencing

My cousin recently pointed out to me that unlike her I do not force people to change their opinions. Am I bad at the art of influencing. So many years in the corporate world has forced me to look at every feed back from a corporate angle. But she was not referring to that angle.

Me and my cousin always have long conversation on views that we both have. She according to her tries her best to convince people that what she says is correct, whereas in my case I hear them out and tell them where I stand and what I believe. She thought my approach was not correct.

To be very frank I agree in her opinion about me. But I have a reason, life's experiences have taught me that we never get to know the full story. No matter how much we open up, there are some facts which we end up keeping with ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. More over when we open, our expression is influenced by our state of mind, these expressions are facts combined with interpretations. The listener at the other end would totally depend on us to give an opinion , so the output has to do with the input.

I have always had people lean on my shoulders ..so much so that I at times felt that there is this pull in me which draws people towards me to share their sorrows...which at times can drain you. I hear every one out . When it comes to give my opinion, I don't take extreme postures, neither do I endorse blindly what they feel or make out of the situation. This is because I always think what we get to hear is at the max, 80% of what would have transpired. Of that 80%, a great % is based on ones interpretation of things. In such a case the best stand that I take is present in black and white all possible outcomes and solutions.

I never zero in on a final decision for others. I let them take that, not because I do not know how to influence, it is because I don't want to influence solely based on what I heard them say.

It is human nature, we will never be able to say everything about our life, for various reasons.

A public life

Today everyone is on Facebook, twitter and other social networking sites. You don't exist if you don't have an online profile. The first thing most of us do when we need to know about a person is to google him or her. I was introduced to this kind of snooping 2 yrs back, when my friends husband casually mentioned during one of our conversations that he married my friend after a google background check. That prompted me to google myself!!!.

I was stunned to find out that my name already came up in the options so I did not have to type my whole name. This implies some one did google me, not so sure though as I have a very common name. Everything just popped up, I mean, my Facebook profile, Linked In profile, My comments on various websites etc etc. That's when I realized that without my knowledge the cyber world was keeping record of my activities. The very next thing I did was disable the google search options in these networking sites. I was not comfortable living a very public life.

Same with Facebook, I do not post updates on what happens in my life on a daily basis, whereas some of my friends do that regularly. I often log on to Facebook but activities is restricted to updates from friends. Amongst my friends a few are like me, passive on Facebook, I guess they too just log on to see what is happening around. At times I think I am a curious cat, want to know what is going around, but not interested in posting what is happening around me. If people stop posting live updates, I guess I would not possibly log on to Facebook.

While there are people who crave for social recognition, there are others like me who is looking out to what others are doing. There is a good amount of balance between them and hence the show goes on. Over the years I have come across personality types based on the updates that people post on these networking sites. They are:

The Gung Ho types:- Life for these types rock. Nothing seems to be wrong in their life, at least they appear. They post about everything they do, any airport, hotel they check in, any party they attend, conversations are all online!!!!.

The Romantic kinds: These are the ones who are either fallen in love or are newly married. They post pictures of themselves together, every little event is photographed and posted. The standard comments are, "so sweet or so cute", "You guys look good together" etc etc.

The comment hungry kinds: These are the ones I hate. They post everything expecting people to comment. In fact I have been reminded more than once I have not commented on their pictures. Come on guys..get a life. Well I understand that comments are liked by all, but don't force people to comment.

The sympathy seekers: These are the kinds who post touching messages reflecting their own state of life . They are sad, they make you sad. I understand the need to pour out your grief, but I guess pouring our to some one in flesh and blood is always better. Online outpouring of grief just gives you sympathizers who sympathize with you in one line written as a comment. Those really concerned will call you up..and check how many calls you get ..they are the ones who really care.

The activists: These are the kinds who always post their frustrations over political or administrative failures. I think networking sites help release their pent up energy, but wait a minute, is it because of this that nowadays we do not see people's movement and get to see more of online movements. This is a good way of awakening people.

The family centric: They posts are around their wives and kids. Any new thing their kids do finds its way to the sites. All holidays, birthday parties etc etc

The passive kinds: I belong to this category. We are kinds who are observing everyone as life goes on. Once in a while we make our presence felt, by posting a comment or a picture. Every post is after much thought, we think a lot. We form impressions about the kind of life a person lives by their networking personalities, the kinds listed above, should I say any thing more :-)

Losing battle of nerves

How many of us have argued with our mothers and won an argument. Are there many..because I never do. It is always a battle lost.
The minute I try to correct her, she says I have no right to do so, because she is the mom and I am the child. Are mom's always right. I am not sure if it has to do with the typical Indian order in which respect has to be given which is , Mother , Father, Teacher and then God. She thinks she can never be wrong and I am simply not able to convince that she can be wrong.

She is one who is a personification of Amrytya Sen's book "Argumentative Indians". She would argue, argue and argue. I try to bring in corporate decorum in our conversations, and drag her attention when she wavers (which is often the case) from the topic. But she would convert the conversation to an argument and in no time I lose the corporate decorum as I am made to pull up my sleeve.
The battle is finally won on emotional grounds and I give up. Her standard words are
1) I brought you up and you have no right to teach me things,
2) Don't think now that I am dependent on you, you can say whatever you want (the fact is that she hardly allows me to say anything :-)
3) I would go to some old age home and spend rest of my life there.
I finally give up!

When was the last time you were content with life

A few months back I was driving from Rhode Island to Connecticut , roughly 2 hours drive. I took along a colleague for company. During our conversation she mentioned that she is very content with her life and she is really happy at the way her life is going.
At that point it struck me that I never made such a statement ever in my life. Well it was not just a statement, you actually have to feel it and she did say that from the bottom of her heart.
But still I doubted her and tried to probe to find what made her say that she was content. I thought may be she was referring to her present state, a momentary phase in her life. I was just not ready to accept this statement as it appeared.
If you ask me why, that is because I did not come across any one who said this, every one had some or other issue that was lacking in their life. The issues could be trivial, but it did bother them to the extent that they did not feel that it was the best life. My colleague then went to elaborate, how she had a smooth life till now, whatever she aspired for she got, aspirations were not ivory tower aspirations. They were little little dreams, like good education, a nice husband, a stable job, a decent house. She said she did not aspire anything more.
Once I reached Connecticut, the first thing I told my cousin was my colleagues statement. She immediately dismissed that. She told me that is impossible and even if it was true, that is just a phase and this too shall pass. The grounds for dismissing my colleagues statement was "she has to see life as yet". Yes my colleague was only 25, so in a way she has just started living her life.
Though my cousin dismissed my colleague's statement, I did believe her. I never made a statement at 25 that I was content in life. I was more miserable that what I am today, because I had a laundry list of items that I had to achieve, an apartment, a better job etc etc.

I understood where my cousin's outburst came from. She was a qualified engineer in the US but without a job. Thanks to recession any possibility of her landing a job was next to zero.Her husband is a doctorate holder but stuck with a job that he is not enjoying, but he has no option but to hang on to feed his family.
Net net I realized that feeling content has to do at what stage of life you are in and how successful you are in achieving your dreams, the dreams need not be lofty..it is the sense of achievement and how easily you achieve it.
I decided to believe that my colleague actually meant what she said. Had I been in her position, I would have said the same, because the factors that made her content were the same factors that made me discontent when I was her age. So when was the last time you felt content in life ?