Catch me when I am good !!

Once or more all of us come across situations in life when some friend of ours ends up disappointing us by judging us the way we find hard to accept. Because either we know or we think that ‘this is how I shall be perceived’ or ‘I am not who you are telling me I am’.

I am attempting this post to share my experiences of how I think some situations should be handled and whosoever read this please let me know the other better or alternate ways.

Whenever you judge a person next time, esp. if it’s a negative opinion try to tell them beforehand instead of waiting for them to make the same mistake again and then feeling victorious over your conclusions, ‘You are like that coz you did it again’. It might satisfy your self esteem for the moment but would not be healthy for the relationship. Of course you too are nice and are trying to save yourself and that’s why you didn't unleash your resentment the first time you started filling your cup!

So what if instead of catching people when they are wrong, you catch them when they are right.                  

Okay instead of abstract talking which I believe mathematicians enjoy the most, let’s state an example,

Suppose you stay at a rented place away from your family and a flat mate of yours hands you a list of things to shop for him. You get all the things in the list and for some of them you make special effort by browsing 3-4 shops even. You handover them to the fellow, he thanks you and that’s one incident.

On another fine day rather night you ask him for something and told him to return it in the morning.   You forgot to return for some genuine XYZ reason and even forgot that you forgot. One more time you repeat this thing and you wake up with a blast next morning!!!

A: “you told me that you would get it in the morning, you forgot”!!!

B: “I m really sorry, should I get it now?”

A: “Yes please, but this is your second time, you had done this before too”.

B: (What does it mean; do you think I am doing it purposely?) “Oh, is it? I really don’t remember”

  “Give me 5 minutes; I will immediately get it for you.”

A: “You should remember what all you would need while coming back from the work”!!!!

B: “Excuse me, the last time I asked you to get my stuff was when I was not well and you could see that.”

    (I never thought I would have to justify that)

A: “Ya, I know you were sick.” (I am lecturing you because you need to improve)

B: “I am sorry, I’ll try to avoid taking any favors from you again”.

So,,,,,, not a very positive conversation definitely!  I think this situation could have been avoided if A had told this to B on the night when B borrowed A’s stuff second time:

"Please take it unhesitatingly and do remember to get it in the morning unlike once when you missed completely". A could have thanked B with special mention of the extra efforts and wonder what? the above incident would have never happened. Not ignoring the fact that B shouldn't have done it twice.

I am not trying to find who is guilty here, the point I really want to make is, most of the time we are busy catching mistakes. Like mostly what parents  do, "you didn't keep your stuff in place","you didn't this.. that etc" 
What a remarkably +ve difference it would make, if they would just change their approach, "You arranged your almirah all by yourself, good girl :)!!" 

My boss does this to me always, instead of telling me where I went wrong he only tells me you are wonderful at this and guess what, I am happy to be on my toes for being the same ‘wonderful’.  For something that I am not very good at, he would appreciate the ones who are, in front of me and see without even letting me down he conveyed the message.

What if he had used the same chalk and talk, “You are not good at this, you need to improve”.
Well, I would have taken it positively but it would have crushed my confidence, isn't it?

So catch people when they are right, when they are good instead of catching them when they aren't.
It would lift them up and that would raise your spirits too.

P.S: My longest post till date, hope it caught you till this P.S :P

Happy Reading!

Cheers~