Meter dekhlo!

You have probably heard this thousand times at a petrol pump. Have you ever wondered why do these attendants have to say this each time they fill petrol in your car? Well, I have. Yesterday evening while I was refilling my car, a question crossed my mind? Why do they have to say 'Meter dekhlo'(check the meter) every single time?

The answer is simple. These attendants want to tell us that they are not cheating on us. This is an easy conclusion, isn't it? Why is there a question of cheating if we are paying for it? It is a question of trust. If you want others to trust you, you must start trusting them as well. How about us trusting these attendants? We give such a small task to these attendants and we don’t trust them. Doesn't this happen to us elsewhere as well? - At workplace, at home, in the society? Think about it. I am sure all of us have assigned responsibilities to someone without trusting that he/she will do the job. Only if we had little faith in each other, our world would have been so much better.

Coming back to filling the fuel tank – how many times have you found these attendants cheating on you? I have never ever been cheated but I still check the meter when the guy fills petrol in my car. It has become a sort of a tradition now. Unless you see the meter, you don’t believe that the petrol is going into the fuel tank. How ridiculous!

Words of wisdom

The dictionary qualifies wisdom as the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. Knowing what is true, right or lasting is knowledge. To apply that knowledge for good is wisdom. By this equation it is not wrong to say that people may have tremendous knowledge but very little wisdom.

Thinking about wisdom I realized that it is not up in the air, like it sounds. It is common sense. I have often heard people speak words of discouragement like, ‘you cannot do this or you cannot do what I have done’. What good is it to gain all the knowledge but fail to encourage an individual? What’s the harm in encouraging someone? What is the surety that the other person cannot be better? Why can’t a champion tell his successor that he can be better than him? This is where wisdom comes into play. Maradona, the greatest footballer ever, is a fan of a 21 year old footballer Lionel Messi. Maradona says that Messi can be better than him. Now, this is words of wisdom. By saying this he does not lose his greatness, does he? You cannot imagine how much you give to the other person by such simple ‘words of wisdom’.

When I was in 9th standard, I had good football skills but when the coach told me that I am too thin to play, I gave up playing. For two years I didn’t even touch football. After I passed out of high school, I was more mature and understood that I should have taken that as a challenge, but it was already late. I missed the opportunity of playing for my school. There are only few people who take it up as a challenge and prove the other person wrong, but what’s the point in making someone ambitious just to prove a point? The person can do much better with a positive feeling than with an ‘I-will-show-him’ attitude.

If you wish for someone to improve use ‘words of wisdom’.

“Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.”
-Joseph Addison

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Today he will have food to eat!

While I was driving down for a function with my family, I heard a conversation between my daughter and my wife. My daughter, upon seeing the beggars on the road, asked her mom "Why do they ask for money", to which her mom replied "because they have to buy food to eat", in a manner that the child would understand. To this the little one asked another question,"why don't we give them some money then"?. Her mom told her that we cannot give them everyday.

Later, when we were returning home, my daughter insisted that we give some money to an old man on the road who walked up to us. She gave him few coins and said "Today he will have food to eat".

I think every child thinks in the same way. If everyone thought like children there would be no poverty. There are millions of people with so much money, who can spare a little for the needy.

Have a great day!

 

Technorati Tags: Child , poverty , beggar , street children , food