Straight from Heart

Straight from Heart- Title
I chose this title for this blog, as this was the phrase used by my good friend Shanto. He used this phrase twice. Once on his farewell day i.e day when he was leaving from Bangalore to US . Next he used when he met me during last week. He is one of the few persons who always believed me and my personal strengths and looked at me from a different perspective. I always felt i am too straight and certainly carry more emotions more than a normal person and with the result people may not prefer me as a person. He is of the view that my biggest strength on relation is that I think from my heart and not from my brain. But i used to ponder whether it is a strength. Can a relation be nurtured in such an emotional manner . How many people can think like Shanto and in my view few and in my experience hardly i have come across any person in my first circle who has a heart of reciprocation. It may also be due to our own internal emotional conflicts because in every relation, we set expectations consciouly or sub-consciouly and when the expectations are not met we get into different moods and more of a negative side of it. So does it mean that it calls for a change in my thinking or in my approach ?

In life we learn from others experience or we learn from our own experience. The realisation by us in our own life will make us to change for better. I also realised the need for change. I also felt the need for change six months back. Somewhere in the month of June i realised and thanks to my dearest friend who opened my eyes. We always meet various people and some people influence us in a more positive manner and some people influence our thinking. I also got changed due to one of my closest friend who influenced my thinking. The change which brought me was two fold. One self realisation on mine and second not to create any expectations from any relation.
Self realisation
During the month of June I received worst ever drubbing from the most unexpected person in my life. I realised on that fateful day. My realisation was simple.I felt little bit ashamed of myself on my past when i used to express my negative side of the emotions and used to take on people be it officially or professionally or personally. If i can feel bad on drubbing by somebody who is so close to my heart, how much others would have felt bad due to me. Post that i realised an immediate need to change myself. I made an attempt to change but i am not sure about the success. But certainly people do tell me now that this Sekar is different from the old sekar. Many thanks to that friend who taught me and opened my eyes.
Relation without expectations
This incidence also opened my eyes on other thought. Is it possible to have a relation without expectations. In life we meet various people. We like to treat some people as passers by, some people as genuine friends and likes to create the relation for life and some people just as acquaintainces. There is no set rule but all of us have preferences. Each preference is governed by set of circumstances and certain expectations out of it.

Should we create all this relation with expectations? I am not saying everybody does it. Certainly an average person like me gets that thought. It is human and i dont like to feel gulity about it. But when the expectations are not met certainly it impacts us. Very often we like to give something for somebody or try to help others or try to assist others. We try to do this purely for the sake of relation or the enjoyment that we derive from that relation or friendship.
The relation may last and in my view it is possible to last only we continue to love the relation without any expectations. Continue to love the relation though the other person may not attach importance to it. This is possible only if we have no expectations. I tell to some of the people " Everybody will love me as long as they need me" when they talk about relation management. The challenge therefore before us is that as an individual we need to keep on buidling up value addition in our relation. Not only value addition in our professional relation but also in any relation.
Belief in your thought
I recall the story in Mahabharat. Lord Krishna was sleeping in the afternoon which is the most unusual. Both Duryodhana and Arjuna comes to meet him to take Lord's help for the battle. Lord has two offers. One his complete Army without Lord and second Lord himself but without any arms and condition that he will no fight. The offer was given to Duryodhana first and he prefers Krishna's army as he thought with army he could defeat others but Arjuna preferred Lord. Ultimately the blessing of Lord helped Pandavas to win the battle. The moral here is simple. Arjuna loved Lord but Duryodhana preferred material out of the lord. (Though Arjuna was taught lesson by Lord in different time due to his arrogance) .If relation is created for the benefit it may not last but if relation is created only for the respect, love and regards on others, it may last .
C.Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) in one of his speeches used to say " when knowledge becomes matured it becomes wisdom" May be i am trying to become more matured on every aspect of my life. Many thanks to that friend who taught me and opened my eyes. One of my lawyer friends and my Rakhi sister used to describe me that "My IQ on tax and profession is high but my EQ on relation is very low". I hope my EQ also becomes higher in the days to come.
Have a great week ahead.