I was musing for days how to put this the best way, as everything I am to write is all common sense, even more universally accepted than the idea of people being different. It is sooo normal, natural and common sense that it seems very trivial (as you will see) and people (normally) might not even pay attention to it. Because of that, I couldn't come up with any good idea to introduce this topic. However, considering I have learned it a hard way, I decided to give it a shot.
So well? We are well persuaded that we think differently, and greatly different from other people out there. But do you realize also that we are similar in many ways? We think differently but we all think. We feel differently but we all have feelings. We all have dreams, ambitions, happy moment, sad time, up and down.
What can this help?
- Respect. Seeing that every single one around me is filled up with dreams and ambitions, having talents in this way or another way, understanding that they are trying and facing difficulties to advance in life, I come to respect them and never look down to anyone.
- Understanding. I start to think about reasons and feelings of others before blaming them for anything. Is it their nature to behave like that? Or they are not in a good mood? Are they getting some difficulty that affect the work? Then you will naturally start to think about solution: How you can understand his real thinking and feeling, How you can solve or support him.
- Understanding 2: While you are doing something to others, be well prepared that they might be thinking or doing the same thing to you. I'm not totally clear about this point myself. Explain more later.
An interesting example, you are constantly inspecting and judging the ones around you. Not only so, you use your qualities to measure theirs. Say, while I think Tomithy is aiming to too many things, he'd say I should be more daring. While I think Laurence is not serious about a project, and aiming for too simple things, he'd say I'm aiming too high at the same time.
From here you can easily see that we are different on how we think and feel.
- Reflection: It's surprisingly easy to spot others weaknesses and bad points, while you can equally easily neglect your own problems.Think, you can also make these mistakes. So whenever you see something wrong, you can reflect it into yourself, to see if you have done it well or not.
- Reminder: Great minds think alike. Always be alert that many people are aiming for the same thing as you, so don't ever neglect your work and always work hard. If you are joining a competition and working hard for it, be well prepared that many others are aiming to it and doing the same level, if not more rigorous, training as you are. If you are having a great ideas, there well be many others have the same ones, so do it fast and hard.
- Confidence. Extremely useful when you doubt your own ability or have to struggle difficulties. You see all these figures leaders of the world? Thinking about them at young age. I'm sure at some points they were full of doubt, their abilities weren't appreciated. And at many points, they had to face great difficulties. So? They could overcome difficulties, why cant you? Understanding that, you can be more confidence and have more strength to keep going on.
“I wasn’t getting very far. Most of the time I was struggling to keep my job. I’d see other people my age, such as Simon Donaldson (1986 Fields Medallist), being considerably more successful, and I thought I’m obviously not all that good. There were times when I thought of dropping out.”
http://www.simonsingh.net/Fields_Medallist.html
I really liked this post, Hong: yes, I've been thinking about and struggling with the People Are Not Like You mantra that Chewy gave us. Not to quibble - but I think there are certain scenarios in which that idea does not apply, or isn't particularly useful.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I quite enjoyed this post of yours. =) Nice thinking you've done there.
I think some people are dissatisfied with Chewy's contention. I suspect it is because they are taking it at absolute value, which is really their own fault. Chewy spoke in the context of marketing and user experience, and provided ample examples and reasons for all he said.
ReplyDeleteHe did not speak about feelings, attitude, reflection, understanding or respect. Of course people are like you in that context.
Haha, Adhiraj, I didn't say I disagree with Chewy in any aspect. And I sure understand the meaning of that lesson.
ReplyDeleteThis post is not to dispute what Chewy said, but to tell a different story.