Our words make lot of difference

by Satish.nair@adityabirla.com
(Jodhpur, India)

The blind boy gets a living by begging, all day he sits at the same place, a small pot along with a board in front of him written on in chalk says that “I cannot see, kindly help”, he gets only few coins, but it is not sufficient for making ends meet, he has to take care of his aging parents and siblings. He is a common figure on the roadside, one day a stranger passes by and he saw the beggar and as well as the board beside him, when seeing this, he got an idea, he erased what is written on the board and wrote something, then onwards, amazingly the pot flooded with coins. The next day when the gentleman returned and the boy could understand him from his footsteps. He asked “Sir, what did you write on the board? It made a lot of difference."

He replied, “I wrote the truth only, but I wrote it differently”, however the boy could not hide his curiosity, he asked the stranger, “Let me know what you have written”, which made a lot of difference in the attitude of the public.

The man said I wrote on the board a truth, very simple, but meaningful, it makes a difference, “I wrote…today is a beautiful day, but I am not able to see the beauty of the day” and it made a wonderful effect in passers by, every one started to think they can see the beauty of the day, nature, people, the aroma of the morning, the tranquility of nights, the flowers, the birds, the moon and all that makes the beautiful life, but this boy could not see any of it. Peoples’ sympathy many folded and result is the overflowing pot with numerous coins.

This shows how your words make effect on others, we can make an enemy by simply saying “what foolishness you have done”, however when you say it this way “I have some doubts, let me see the things from another angle”, both statements are meant the same, however when you say it differently it make a lot of difference to others. It is very hard to convince the listener with a ‘No, can not’, but you can say the same thing differently without harming the listener like, “I will see, let me understand” – here there is no harm, even if you make the same point across.

Some situations are not under our control and of course we often face problems in convincing others that it is not our intention to not listening them, but there are time constraints and other reasons that we are not able to listen them properly, this sometimes make others annoyed. Yes, if you say straightforward “yes, sure’ these words make much differences, however the clever people take this for granted. Just think; we cannot satisfy everybody every time, this is the case of money, time and when we fell in the trap laid by others, we are creating a picture of “Gentleman” on ourselves and everybody comes to us for help and to put us in trouble. You see, it is very easy to dig in the wet soil.

It is easy to make a situation, where others see difficult in asking something, money, your time, your help, rather to say simply ‘No’. We find it hard to say somebody a simple “NO’ and we feel the helplessness at that time, hence it is up to us that what are the appropriate words, and when to use it, it all depends on our common sense and intelligence, once we are able to make a statement with appropriate words and terms, we do not harm others and they also do not feel unhappiness about it.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair once said that “The key to leadership is to say NO, as it is very easy to say YES”. How appropriate are his words.