Once upon a time, when boss
was Right, he took his employee to a night club. Both got drunk. The boss started appraising
his employee. He said “you have great
potential, skills and talents. You can
become manager in next couple of years if you give up your habit of
drinking. A profound response came from
the employee. “I feel I am your boss
after two pegs and have this feeling throughout the day, every day. Are you telling Manager in next couple of
years?
Dear Friends, these are the
two perspectives to one problem or a situation.
And there can be many
perspectives to the same. This is what Dr.
Stephen Covey calls it has a Paradigm shift when the perception is
changed.
According to an old story, a
man with a serious illness was wheeled into a hospital room where another
patient was resting on a bed next to a window.
As two became friends, the one next to the window would look out of it
and then spend the next few hours delighting his bed ridden companion with a
vivid description of the world outside.
One day he would describe
the symphony of hues that color the landscape of garden outside the
hospital. Another day he would describe
the beauty of the trees as lungs of nature.
He said, they created a red carpet of flowers on the ground. He described how in the leaves danced to the
tunes of wind. On other days he would
entertain his friend with step by step replay of the things people were doing.
He used to describe the different walking styles as toddling, paddling and
strolling. He would describe people’s Love, passion and affection. Sometimes he would describe the whispering
talks of young couples.
However, as time went on the
bed ridden man grew frustrated at his inability to observe the wonder his
friend described. Eventually he grew to
dislike him and then to hate him intensely.
One night, during a bad
coughing fit, the patient next to the window stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead and wheeled out of
hospital. The other man quickly asked if
his bed be placed next to the window. It was honored quickly. But, as he looked at the Window, he
discovered something which made him shake: the window faced a stark brick
wall. His former roommate had described
the incredible sights out of his imagination as a loving gesture to make the
world of his friend a little bit better during a difficult time.
This story never fails to
create a paradigm shift in my own perspective when I think about it. It happened very recently in my life, very
recently. I was fighting with time,
personal urgency and office work. One
day, after a tough conversation with my client, I was deep into my laptop and
was lost in storm of emails. My small,
little daughter used to come frequently and interrupted me. Once she came with the bloomed jasmine flower
and kept it on my laptop. I shouted
don’t pluck the flower. Next she came
with a sketch of her ideal home and displayed it to me. Few minutes later, she came and wrote a
smiley face on my hand. This was enough
for me to shout from the roof of my home and yelled at her “why are you
disturbing me?” the response from her shook me , she said, “ I was only trying
to make you happy”
This created a paradigm
shift in my perspective. As Dr.Covey puts it, I saw things differently, I
thought differently, I felt differently and behaved differently. My irritation was vanished. My heart was filled with love, compassion and
affection for her. I said, “I am so
sorry, and embraced her?” our conversation went on …
Stephen Hawking says, we
live on a minor planet of a very average star located within the outer limits
of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies.
How’s that paradigm shift in our perspective?
To live happier, for more fulfilling life,
when we encounter a difficult circumstance, we must keep shifting our
perspectives and continually ask ourselves “Is there a wiser, more enlightened
way of looking at this seemingly negative situation”.
We walk in this planet for such
a short time. In the overall scheme of
things, our life is just a blip on the canvas of eternity. Dear friends, let’s have the wisdom to look
at the things differently and enjoy the journey of life.
“The right perspective
creates paradigm shift and makes the impossible possible”
References:
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey
Who will cry when you die by Robin sharma
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