I took time to realize
this but not all that your good meaning elders say is true and not all that
your bad meaning acquaintances say is false. In fact, nothing anyone says is
true or false, it is just their perspective on it. The main thing is where you place
your belief.
Scenario 1:
There was this old lady I knew, who kept making snide remarks about me being a
single girl and not knowing how to cook. She always poked fun of me and was
dead sure my lack of cooking skills will be detrimental to find a husband.
Sometimes her remarks made me feel inadequate but soon after meeting my future
husband all my worries were soothed as he believed that I should play on my
strengths. He wanted a happy partner not a superb cook for a wife. (For all who
are still being judgmental, I do cook for my husband these days but that I do
when I feel like and it turns out to be just to his liking!)
Point here is I
believed in myself, I believed that if I could get college degrees in first
class I was totally capable of learning how to cook too. And that made all the
difference, today I love the process of cooking and feeding my dear ones.
Scenario 2:
After slogging for
years in smaller IT companies, I finally got my dream job in a big MNC, where
the pay was good and the profile was challenging. Add to it, I
thought my manager, senior most in our team, to be an elderly good-meaning
chap. But as days passed, he started turning into the boss from "Devil
Wears Prada", criticizing all my work, belittling my efforts in trying to
handle the overwhelming work load which he kept dumping on me. I really gave the job my best but in most
appraisal meetings, the feedback I got was about how inadequate I am and how
there are others who are much better than me. To top all the negative feedback,
he kept mentioning to me that I may have been a wrong hire at my grade and that
I should have been hired at a level below than the current one! All this was
too much for me to handle, I had really started believing that I am not good
enough in the job and that I was putting up a very sorry show. I was thoroughly
miserable, each day going to the office was one tremendous effort for me. I did
what I best knew, to flee from the site. I quit my job and resigned to the fate
of being labeled as a loser (Oh yes! There are people who think that you are a
failure because you are unemployed and you quit without an alternate job in hand.
Office politics is a taken and everyone faces them at some point, apparently
most of them put up with the same or tackle it adeptly. I did
neither.)
Ok, coming to the crux
of the matter, I totally started believing that I was a loser, not a capable
employee and a totally wrong hire for the position. Had I not believed it, I
would have had the strength to fight the situation, come up with a plan to
deal the critic and stick to the job.
Two very different
scenarios with different outcomes. The differentiating factor was my level of
belief in myself at both these times. I now realize that there will always
be people voicing their opinions (right or wrong), some sadists trying to pull
you down, destroy your self confidence or image but if you know who you are,
what your worth is, even the naysayers' voice don't affect you.
So always believe in
yourself, root for your own progress. Eventually people will follow your lead!
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