Relating is the key to thriving at work and in Life

People are people. There are no right people and wrong people. You just either relate to people or you don’t.  

We met an entrepreneur the other day who leads a large organization. He has about 15 people reporting to him. Over the last couple of years that we have known this entrepreneur, he has forever been complaining about the lack of ownership among his leadership team. He is obsessing over how to sack the “laggards” among his direct reports – but, ironically, he hasn’t been able to do anything in that direction. Every time we meet him though, he only keeps complaining, fretting and fuming about his people. In a way, we sense so much negativity emanating from him – it makes me wonder whether he has a problem with his people of if he is the problem?

Contrast this with what Suresh Krishna, the CMD of Sundram Fasteners, shared with me when I met him recently for my Sunday Blog Series – “The Happiness Road”: “There are no right or wrong people. There are just people. And you have to take them along. This ability to take everyone along is what leadership is all about!”

I totally agree with Krishna. Seriously, whether it is in business, at work, or in family, don’t obsess over people and their behaviors. There are no right or wrong people. Everybody is right in their own way. In fact people do whatever they do because they believe what they are doing is right from where they are seeing it. To be sure, even you – or I – do things only from that perspective. So, there is no point in vexing over people like our entrepreneur-friend has been doing. You either relate to someone or you don’t. And people either relate to you or they don’t. And it is only when two people continue to relate to each other that they (can) work with or live with each other. It is, really, as simple as that.

I have learnt to employ a simple thumb-rule: no matter who they are, anyone who I cannot relate to, does not form part of my ecosystem. Whether it is a co-worker, a family-member, a school-mate, a neighbor or vendor, the day I have stopped relating to a person, I just let them go. This is my way of preserving and nurturing positive energy – and inner peace – in me.

When you agonize over people’s behavior, and your unmet expectations of them, you are filling yourself with a lot of anxiety, stress and, possibly, negative energy. This negativity festers in you and makes you inefficient, irate and, believe me, very, very unhappy. The only way to fix this situation is to drop all expectations you have of people, and to simply walk away – or let them go – if you have stopped relating to them. The key to thrive, at work and in Life, is to keep relating, than obsess over the reporting or the relationship itself! 

“wotsubusu” craving, feel liberated!

No object of desire is the cause of any agony in itself. It is your craving for that object that makes you suffer.

Take for instance, a hot summer day. And you are thirsty. You see nice juicy watermelons on the street and want to stop your car. But you find the parking slots by the stall crowded and you see a policeman standing under a tree nearby. You believe the cop will object to your parking your car outside of the earmarked space. You are miffed and drive away cursing the crowds and the cop, ruing the missed opportunity to take some of those melons home. Even when you narrate this experience to your wife when you get home, you are complaining and are not merely reporting. There’s a sense of loss and evidence of frustration in your reportage. Now, did the humble melon on the street cause your agony or did your craving for it__and your eventual inability to buy it__cause it?

Think about it. All of us are victims of this cravings-brings-suffering trap. What we crave for is not the cause, it is the act of craving that causes misery. We crave for attention, adulation, understanding, respect, fame, rewards, recognition, wealth, opportunity, love and followership. And when we don’t get it, we are disappointed. Now, if you are disappointed and if your disappointment doesn’t affect your Life, it is fine. But when you are disappointed, you are mourning. Your energies are low. You start operating in a low energy__scarcity__spectrum. This naturally affects the way you live and experience Life. On the other hand, consider the situation when there is no craving, and so there’s no disappointment, so there’s no suffering. In such a scenario, you are operating in a high-energy__abundance__spectrum. Remember: Wherever your attention goes, your energy flows. In Buddhist teachings, they advocate the complete cessation of craving. Which means to eliminate all craving. In Japanese, the word wotsubusu means to annihilate. When you wotsubusu craving, you feel liberated. Such freedom opens up a whole new opportunity spectrum of playing to your strengths – to what you have. Than to worry about, lament over, what you don’t have.

Simplify Life: Give up the craving. And you will immediately stop suffering!

“Demanding faithfulness is like demanding slavery”

The best way to have wonderful relationships is to do two things: never expect anything from it or from someone and always respect the other person.

When we expect someone to be what we want them to be, we are not respecting the person as a special, unique individual. Wherever expectation rises, respect often goes out. Much of the problem in marital or personal relationships is because there is an expectation of faithfulness. While it is important that deceit or cheating must be avoided in any relationship, the nature of the expectation of faithfulness is an indicator that we have stopped respecting the other person. To be faithful cannot mean living someone else's Life. Or you cannot insist that someone live their Life as you want them to for you to be able to call them faithful. To be faithful means to be true to yourself, first doing what you want to do as long as it will not hurt or harm anyone else. When all people in a relationship are true to themselves, and don't harm each other, a harmonious environment is born that respects each individual in it. That's when relationships become meaningful and stand the test of time.

Osho, the Master, argues this perspective immensely well: "Who are you to demand faithfulness from anyone else? Demanding faithfulness is like demanding slavery. There's a misconception in people that love must be permanent. Only stones are permanent. To ask for faithfulness is wrong. There was a season__the spring, the faith, the love arose in you. You did not create it. It was just a happening. Just like a breeze it comes and just like a breeze it goes. When it comes, rejoice. And when it goes, say good-bye. Millions of couples in the world know there's no love between them anymore. But for the sake of society, reputation, for respectability, they go on pretending they love each other. This pretention is the real sin, the real crime."

This is not to conclude however that love cannot be eternal between people. It can be eternal. As long as there is respect for the other person and you have no expectations of that person, while being true to yourself first in the relationship.

There’s no conspiracy by Life to fix you!

Sometimes the way Life deals with you, can make you conclude that there is a conspiracy to fix you. Therefore, when you ask why something is happening to you, you have triggered off your suffering!

I was talking to a friend the other day. He reported that his business had slowed down, money due to him from various clients was not coming in and he had also lost a couple of contracts. Over and above all of this, his partner had turned cold and was refusing to take his calls and was not paying him his legitimate share of the business profits. “My monthly income has come down to a few thousands, from a few lakh of rupees, in just under a quarter. I don’t know why these things are happening to me. I am consumed by fear and insecurity. I don’t get sleep at nights. I am unable to bear all this suffering,” he lamented.

If you peel away the emotions from what my friend’s faced with, it is all pretty simple: his business is faring poorly and he is not getting enough money to run his Life. Asking why this is happening is irrelevant in the context of what is happening to him. The truth is that whatever is happening is his current reality. And he has to act on it. He must make efforts to both get new business and collect overdue amounts. Now, what happens if he makes those efforts and still does not succeed? Well, even then there’s no point in asking why. He has to try better ways and methods of doing the same thing – promoting his business and collecting his monies.

When you ask why, why me, why me now, in any context, you have invited suffering into your Life. This does not mean you must not examine and analyze any situation. By all means you must. Only an honest appraisal of any situation can lead to specific, pointed action to remedy it. But don’t make the analysis an emotional one. Don’t bring in self-pity, grief, remorse, anger and guilt into the analysis. Don’t bring in God and religion either. Don’t imagine conspiracy theories when there are none! No amount of pining, agonizing and wishing can change what is. If anything can change a situation, it is only sincere, concerted, timely and relevant action. In any situation, therefore, just do your best, and keep trying harder if you don’t succeed the first time. There is no other way.

Suffering arises when you expect things, people, events and circumstances to be different from what they are. Asking why some things happen the way they do or why some people behave the way they do is futile. Things happen so, people behave so, because that is the way it is. When you decide not to suffer and instead accept Life the way it is happening to you, you will appreciate that there is really no conspiracy to fix you. You will then realize that Life, from birth till death, is just series of events and experiences. Your task, in this lifetime, is to flow with Life while learning along the way. It’s really as simple – and choice-less – as that! 

Living without expectations guarantees inner peace

Expectations always bring agony. So, to live without expectations is a personal choice.

Someone I know wrote to me asking if it was possible to live without expectations. Interesting question that is.

That at the root of all agony is an unmet expectation is an irrefutable truth of Life. Think of any situation where you have experienced agony and you will notice that an expectation was always behind it. You do a friend a favor. The friend does not either return it or thank you. You agonize. Now, was doing your friend a favor the cause of your agony? Was the friend not returning the favor the cause of your agony? Or did your expectation that your friend return the favor cause your agony? Obviously, your expectation caused you agony – because, minus the expectation, everything between you and your friend is just fine.

So, living without expectation is simply a choice. If you choose to expect something out of everything or everyone, be sure that you will agonize each time your expectations are not met. If you choose to drop expectations, you will be happy either way - whether you get something or not. So, it is a choice. It is, in some sense, a no-brainer too!

On the surface, at a superficial level, it may appear that you cannot but have an expectation from someone you have a relationship with. For instance, it is right to expect that a mother must trust her children and provide for them. But what if the mother does not trust, does not care? What’s the point in having that expectation just because there is a mother-child relationship? Won’t the child agonize every time the mother fails to meet his or her expectation? The truth is that in any relationship, over time, sometimes, the people in it stop "relating" with each other! This is where the problem arises. Let’s take another instance. If you make coffee for your spouse every morning, you may have an expectation that on a day when you are sleeping in late or are unwell, the spouse makes you the coffee. Now, what happens when your spouse does not either make or offer to make you coffee? Will you then start to re-examine your choice of making coffee for your spouse? Possibly you well may re-examine if you only see the relationship and don’t relate to your spouse anymore. But if you still relate to your spouse, you will make the coffee whether or not your spouse makes one for you or even acknowledges the one you make. Expectations arise when the relating has stopped between people. In such situations the relationship has become a contract, an agreement. It has become conditional. You do this THEN I will do that. But when you are still relating, there are no conditions, no expectations, there's just being, there's just doing.

So, whether it is making coffee or doing the dishes or forgiving someone (in a relationship) for transgressions, whatever, simply pour your heart into it and do it. Or don't do it. That is also fine. But please don't do it - or anything - with an expectation. The problem with any expectation is that irrespective of the character or nature of the person on whom the expectation is pinned, you are the one who will suffer and agonize if that expectation goes unmet. So do you want to suffer or do you want to live free? Your choice! If you want inner peace though, make sure you choose to live without expectations!

Accept people for who they are – don’t judge them for what they say!

Change the way you look at people and Life. Fundamentally, it is NOT necessary that all people should understand you.

Don’t expect people to understand you, appreciate you or accept you. Chances are they won’t. And know that it is perfectly fine for them to be that way. A large part of our emotional stress comes when we crave for understanding, appreciation and acceptance. When we offer an opinion or perspective, at home, at work, wherever, we believe it to be a given that our point of view must be understood. In fact, we demand it. We also expect it and feel good when people appreciate our efforts__from something as immaterial as plain praise to a sense of gratitude that people display for actions we may have taken in their interest. And, of course, everyone wants to be recognized and treated with respect and dignity__a social acceptance of sorts__by everyone else. When these expectations are not met, we feel let down. We grieve. And we carry the heavy burden of a certain longing, a sorrow, of a misplaced craving.

There’s a way to set down this burden. Approach people with the awareness that just as you are entitled to your opinion, others are too. Second, have NO expectations from people. You do your part in a relationship well and live with that satisfaction. Don’t expect appreciation or acceptance. Simple. This attitude helps in keeping everyday living uncomplicated and peaceful. Because peace in daily Life is the biggest casualty in the wake of such expectation.

There’s a story from the Life of Adi Sankara (788 CE ~ 820 CE) that I remember. Adi Sankara was always clad in a loin cloth or a dhoti at best. One day a few urchins on the street that he was passing through, who did not know who he was, pelted stones at him and chided him for being “poor” and “robe-less”. Adi Sankara’s disciples were angry and set out to admonish the young boys on the street. But Sankara stopped them and asked them to carry on. One of the disciples was furious that his Master be abused like this and secondly he simply could not comprehend why his Master advocated restraint when all that the boys needed was a sound thrashing. So he asked his Master to explain why he choose to ignore the barbs and the stones. Sankara replied: “To pelt stones at anyone and call people names is the privilege of those young boys and they have exercised it. To accept their stones and barbs or not is our privilege. I have exercised our right not to accept that privilege by choosing not to react and to simply move on!”

Beautiful isn’t it? If we can cultivate this attitude and embed it in the way we approach everyday Life, our inner peace will never get disturbed. This attitude also comes in handy when people accuse you of being hypocritical. I am sometimes asked if I ‘really practice all that I preach’? And at some other times I am told that what ‘I preach’ is NOT ‘applicable in practical everyday Life’. I don’t react. I simply smile and move on. Because I have learnt to have no expectations of understanding, appreciation and acceptance from people. Also, in reality, what I do here, through my daily posts, is to share my learnings from my experiments and experiences with everyday living. I don’t preach. I share in the belief that what worked for me, may help validate someone else’s experience or clarify a point of view in them or, if they choose to disagree with my view, will at least help them be clear about what they don’t want to or must not do in Life! So, what’s the point countering a charge of hypocrisy? People believe people are hypocritical because they don’t believe people in the first place. This is particularly true when people are being judgmental and call someone a hypocrite without wanting to know the full story. And that brings us back to the subject of understanding – or the lack of it in everyday Life! So, the best way to live in peace is to appreciate and accept people for who they are – than for what they say – and to not expect anything from anyone.

sssssssssssssssh! … here’s the secret to happiness!

The secret to happiness is pretty straightforward. Learn to Live with what you have. Never grieve over what you don't have. And simply don’t have any expectations.

Once a man met a Sufi Master and wanted to know the secret to happiness. And the Master told him this story.

There was once a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and noticed she had only 3 strands of hair on her head. "Well", she said, "I think I will braid my hair today." So she did and she had a wonderful day. The next day, she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two strands of hair on her head. "Hmm," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today." So she did and she had a grand day! The next day, she looked in the mirror and noticed she had only one hair on her head. "Well" she said, "I am going to wear a ponytail today." So she did and had a fun, fun day! The next day, she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed there wasn't a single hair on her head. "Yeah!", she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!".'

That ability, said the Master, to look at what you have and not worry about what you don't have, is the simple secret to happiness. Learn to Live with what you have, you too will have have a grand, wonderful, fun, fun Life!

Learning to live when you hate Life

We all know that not all our wants are ever going to be met. So, even though, often times, we do plunge into despair and grief over unmet expectations, we have the ability to overcome, repair and revive ourselves.

But what do you do when your basic needs are not met? What do you do when you are not loved? When you are not understood? What do you do when you don’t know where your next rupee or dollar in income is going to come from? What do you do when it is a special day in your Life, your child’s birthday, and you can’t even afford a new dress for her? What do you do when the only person you can relate to in the world has been taken away by Life, in a ghastly, unexpected accident? What do you do when you know you are dying of cancer and there’s so much pain that it feels like your whole body is on fire __ and yet death seems so elusive?

What do you do when you must live though you wish you could actually die?

Contrary to what you want to do is, often, what you have to do. And to do that, to live when you would much rather die, you must look your situation in the eye, and despite all your grief, choose to live, LIVE, in that tormenting, torturous moment. That’s when you will find that despite all the pain, you feel no suffering. When you have learned to overcome suffering, you have learned the way to joy, you have learned to live!

Yesterday, a close friend called. He is going through a painful phase in his Life where his brother and he are separating as business partners. The separation has turned messy. My friend says he has tried to be completely giving and has agreed to all terms and conditions stipulated by his brother, however outrageous they have been. The idea was to ensure a peaceful, amicable partitioning of the business. Even so, said my friend, his brother was taunting him and provoking him. My friend did not want to blow up and confound an already vitiated situation. So, he called me asking for advice on what I thought he could possibly be doing.

I was reminded, even as my friend spoke, of a similar situation I encountered some years back. My entire family had concluded that (my wife and) I had cheated them in a transaction involving family property and some substantial cash borrowings. In fact, they still do. Just hearing them say what they did, and reading some ghastly text messages from my siblings, was both humiliating and traumatic. I must have died a thousand deaths in the days and weeks following that episode. Then, call it a revelation, call it enlightenment, I suddenly reasoned that I sought my family’s understanding because I needed it badly. It dawned on me that to understand me (and my wife) did not appear to be on my family’s agenda. Instead misunderstanding every word and action of ours appeared to be on their agenda. So, what was the point in demanding understanding when it was not likely to be given? I looked at the scenario dispassionately and came to the following conclusions:

1.  What was the basis of the misunderstanding? – My family believed that my wife and I were faking our bankruptcy and so were feigning an inability to settle money borrowed from the family

2.   Where was my grief, my suffering coming from? – That I, a son of my family, was being misunderstood, was not being trusted. My ego demanded trust. Whereas the situation completely lacked it because my family simply did not give it or me any trust!

3.  What was the way to end my suffering? – Settle my family’s money for which I didn’t have any means then (or even now) or let go of my need, my craving, for understanding. I chose the latter.

4.   Despite what I felt or experienced, I realized my family had a right to its views and opinions. They didn’t fulfill my need, but surely they believed their reasoning to be sound and so backed their behavior!

I shared this learning with my friend yesterday. I told him to give up his need for his brother to understand him. I told him that at the root of all our suffering is a cause. The cause often has little to do with what may have led to a situation. Instead it has everything to do with our need for the situation to be different. So, let me clarify, it is not even about a want. It is about a need, a more basic, often elementary, non-negotiable, human requirement. For instance, a son, a child will need a family’s understanding and not merely want it. A brother will need his sibling’s understanding and not merely want it. A companion will need her partner’s love and not just want it. A cancer patient will need a cure or death and not simply want either of them! If money be a common denominator for a standard of survival in the world, a basic income is then a need for the qualified, skilled and experienced, and not just a want.

Yet, as is with my story, or my friend’s, or even your own, Life, sometimes, will put you in a place where even a basic need is not fulfilled. You will initially hate such a Life. Because unhappiness__when wants are not met__can perhaps still be endured. But insecurity__when needs are not provided for__suffocates. And yet you have to live! That’s a difficult place to be in. This is when you must learn to live fully with what is__without grief or angst or rancor or suffering. When you do that, your own definition of what is it that you need will undergo a tectonic shift. Then, you will realize that Life is so benevolent. Because all that you really, badly, immediately, need to live is always available, in abundance, to you! Then some of your needs become wants and you reconcile to them not being met. Such an awakening and reconciliation delivers inner peace unto you. You then learn to surrender completely to the moments that make up your Life and you live, fully, freely, peacefully, joyously, in them!

Expectations bring agony!

Expectations bring agony when they are not met. Agony leads to frustration. Frustration to anger. And anger sometimes culminates in rage__extreme agitation in the mind. And, far too often, as we see it in the world around us today, rage in the mind manifests itself as physical violence. 

But what causes expectations in the first place? The thinking that YOU are in control creates a desire, an expectation. Because you work hard and sincerely, you think you deserve a higher raise. So, you desire. Because you brought your child into this world, you think your child must ALWAYS live life the way you want her/him to. So, that's an expectation. Because you have never done any wrong unto anyone and have had a healthy lifestyle, you believe you must never ail from a dreaded disease like cancer. Again, expectation. But how are you__and I__ever in control of anything? 

Look, the sun, the birds, the world, go on without us controlling them. We can't as much as twiddle our toes of our own accord. We control NOTHING. We are but specks in this vast cosmic design, nobodies. When we are anchored in this humble truism, there will be no expectation, we will live in the moment and will live in peace. Only then will we experience bliss HERE and NOW. 

When we begin to see ourselves as controlling even a minuscule element in this cosmos, we will cause misery within us and then in our immediate circle of influence. 

To keep yourself grounded and free from expectations, desires, agony, frustration, anger, rage, and to find bliss, ALWAYS remember that 'life goes on not because of you, but in spite of you'!

Motivation is an Inside Job!

Motivation is really an inside job! Every once in a while you will feel destroyed and completely worthless. That’s when you must draw from your inner reservoir of happiness and reenergize yourself.

Feel happy? When you are sad, down and out? How is that possible, you may well wonder?

Well, take, for instance, the most horrifying, saddest moment of your Life thus far and ask yourself how could you ever have made the situation any better by brooding over it? You cannot get rid of sadness, suffering and agony with more sadness, more suffering and more agony. You cannot rid yourself of any feeling that debilitates you by being sad that it (the feeling) exists. You can only change your current realities by connecting with your inner joy, by being happy.

In any tough situation, obviously one that you dislike, a good starting point is to ask how you are feeling. Replace that feeling with a sense of acceptance over how things are. If you are having a break up and are grieving over it, accept that it is over and done with. If you are having a health challenge, begin by accepting the prognosis. If you have lost heavily in business, accept that you goofed up, that the money is gone! Of course, the situations you choose to accept may have never been what you want them to be. Yet there is no denying that they are the way they are! It is only when you accept Life for what it is, will happiness flower inside you. Until then happiness will seem elusive. It may even seem bizarre. That till you accept a situation, you have poor self-esteem, feel self-pity, brood and feel intensely low. And the moment you accept, you feel peaceful, are flooded with a new, positive energy and are willing to give Life one more chance!

That’s really how you motivate yourself in tough times. External reference points can only be inspirations. But for something to happen to you, it must first happen from within you!  

Zig Ziglar

One of the greatest champions of re-energizing oneself Zig Ziglar, died a few hours ago in Texas, USA. He was 86. All his Life he exhorted people to accept, to appreciate and to find opportunities by being happy with what they have. He often told a story about a woman in Alabama who he said was bitter about her job and angry with her co-workers. He advised her to write down whatever positives she could think of — the solid paycheck, the benefits, the vacation time — and then stare into the mirror and say how much she loved her job. Six weeks later, he said, he ran into her again. “I’m doing wonderfully well,” she told him with a bright smile, adding, “You cannot believe how much those people down there have changed.” Ziglar would also always remind us that ‘failure is an event and never a person’. The import being simply that we may fail with many things and many times in our Life but each time we can bounce back by being happy with ourselves!

Being happy does not mean that sadness will not strike you. It may well when things don’t go per your own plan. But it will not affect you anymore. Being happy is the ability to celebrate what you have, despite your circumstances, rather than agonize over what you don’t have. When you choose to be happy, you, naturally, will be more alive, more motivated to live a fuller, meaningful Life!

So, the antidote to failure, to unmet expectations, is to motivate ourselves to believe, to try again and keep doing this__as long as we must__till we get the results that we want!