Allow your mental space to have some flexibility

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All of us have certain pet positions that we are reluctant to let go of. I do not mean in terms of physical space, but certainly in terms of mental attitudes. At some time or the other, we have had pre-conceived notions about certain people, communities, faiths and nationalities. These are not based on experiences, but they are stereotypes which we may have picked up from our families and our environs, but they later on lead to prejudices.

Some of these prejudices or pre-conceived notions may be based on personal experiences. They are the accumulation of personal memories of a relationship which sometimes colours our analyses and responses.
Let me give you an example. If a husband has had a habit of wasting time on doing irrelevant things and consequently not attending to more important matters on time, it is natural to his wife to yell at him if he is late in picking up their child from school. She will yell at him far above what her normal decibel level would be as she would assume that it was due to his old habit of being involved in trivialities that had delayed him. The truth may be that this time the husband was genuinely caught up in a critical situation from which he could not escape. So he would not take kindly to her extra-high decibel level and he will rudely point out to her habit of pre-judging him, which in turn could trigger off a heated argument.
The construct holds good in an example when the husband, on returning home from work, starts dropping acidic comments assuming why dinner was served late that night. His wife may not have been exchanging notes with the neighbours as he believes, but may have had a domestic crisis involving the children to cope with. In each of these cases, though human tendency is to go by the track record of one’s spouse or partner, it is advisable never to bring such mental baggage in judging issues. It is essential to abandon such baggage and judge each incident independently, on its own merits. Many people get this balance wrong and it destroys a relationship.
The same truth holds for parents and children; we cannot judge children by their past every time they commit a lapse. If your son did not fare too well in his latest exams, do not assume that it was because he was spending too much time social networking, there may have been a genuine problem with his teacher. I have seen too many cases of children hiding many aspects of their lives, because their parents judge them too harshly. It is in such wrong judgements and analyses that we lose faith in people we hold dear.
So the way forward is to carefully sift the grain from the chaff and get to the intrinsic before judging anything and making a response. Otherwise, our responses may be predictable and flawed. At times like these, I remember a magnificent saying of the Mahatma: Speak only if it improves upon the silence....

The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor