Why we refrain from taking a tough stand...

Some recent events around me made me think that we refrain from taking a tough stand because of many reasons. In this particular case, it was more professional than personal and I just watched it from the sidelines. Neither did I participate in it nor I am highly affected by it, but it did made me think about this aspect of human nature.

Sometimes life brings us to a situation or crossroad where we have to make some decisions. Some of these decisions are tough, some are easy. Some are easy to take, tough to maintain, while others are tough to take, but once taken becomes easy to maintain. We all at some point or the other come across such situations, and hence it isn't something which is uncommon. So analyzing it can vary from person to person as perspective vary.

Let's see why we refrain, what are the possible causes. The most common and important aspect is self insecurity. Not everyone has the power of decision making, and often people are worried that they might end up making a wrong decision. People are worried about this aspect more and not the fact that they can reason the decision they make. The other aspect is people oriented. We worry about people around us, as to how they are going to reach and so on, we don't understand the fact that people have very poor memory and whatever we do, they will soon forget and move on to something else. Hence, the onus lies entirely on us, whether we will be brave enough to make the decision or worry about the world and not make it or make a wrong one.

Most people try to avoid confrontation and hence choose a amicable path and refuse to take a tough stand for various reasons, including fear, lack of confidence and other interests. We don't realize the fact that it if we refuse to take decisions at the appropriate time, it only makes the situation worse and the decision at a later stage becomes more tougher.

No one is perfect, so are we. Someone said, to err is human. So at a point, when a decision has to be made, go ahead with confidence and gut feel, and take your call. Try to do analysis based on what you know, what you understand. You can always ask for opinions, or research about it, learn more, but take the decision on your own, the objectives is to address the issue, not to please anyone, not to be politically correct, not to gain some hidden interests.

Life is simple, we make it complex.

Taking things for granted...

Have you ever wondered why a very nice and smooth relationship suddenly goes haywire and no matter what you do, things just don't become the way it should be, it just gets worse. If you have realized this much, it's good in itself, since you realize that there is an issue. Most of the times, people deny to identify or accept the fact that there is an issue in the relationship.

A relationship is like building a camp fire - you need to work on it. The moment you stop working at it, it starts to die down and if not taken care ultimately extinguishes. It needs to be fed with fuel in terms of wood and then appropriately monitored so that it burns and burns on. The analogy may be weird but isn't it true. We have to work to maintain any relationship. Once we feel the person will be there irrespective of what you do, you start loosing the person and it's just a matter of time before the person is just out of your life. The reason is simple, taking people for granted. Everyone in their life have met across someone with whom they have behaved thus, and then have lost them. They have repented but then people are like time, once they go, they never come back. Even if they do, the same essence isn't there any more, it just ends up to be a compromise.

So how do we prevent such a situation? How we make sure that the fire keeps burning? How we make sure our relationships strengthens with time? The answer is simple, work on it. Work on understanding the person in relationship, work on knowing what the other person expects, work on how best you can create a balance between what you want and what the other person wants. If it varies widely, then probably, it's better to walk away. However, if you can save a relationship by working things a little differently, it's worth it.

It is never easy to build up a strong relationship but it's very easy to shatter it. The biggest enemies are suspicion and greed. If both are controlled, it helps to keep the relationship strong. People often become possessive when in a relationship and sometimes forget that they become suspicious in the process. This is the tricky part. Is being possessive wrong? No it is not, but then you need to put yourself in the other person's shoes and figure out how you would have handled it. So be true to yourself and always offer a leverage so that you relationship gets space to grow. If you try to hold it close, it will be like holding an handful of sand, which ultimately will slip out no matter how much you try to grab it. The other problem is greed, people become greedy and loose self control and that kind of hurts the relationship. In the process of making other fires, people loose out the fire that they were originally nurturing. So staying focused makes difference.

So it's aways better to work on a relationship all the time and there will be a time when you will realize that the relationship is working for you, but then too, you can't stop working at it, as a fuel is always needed to keep the fire burning.