Reverse that Iceberg

 

Reverse that Iceberg 

 

 We don’t choose our parents; we get them; the relation is created by Nature. Do we acquire personality from our parents in inheritance? May be some genetic disposition. However, environmental factors play a vital role in developing the personality of an individual. Environmental factors vary which are instrumental in development of personality of children. Majority of parents would think good for their children and would try to provide them a better life, however their approach in doing so again would vary. Some of the parents, as a child, would have experienced struggling time due to poverty, lack of resources, bad behaviour of their parents and biased approach towards their children. Such children either they succumb to situation they are in and become similar to their parents and show similar behaviour to their children or worse or they strive to rise to be better and try to give a better future to their children. However, traces of discrimination, memories of ill treatment and approach to treat their children in a particular manner is so deep engraved in their psyche that they are not able to do justice to upbringing of their children in spite of good intentions to do so. They may feed their children with one hand but would despise with other. Their expectations from their own children gets sky-rocketed and would like to see them what they want to see them as. They are afraid to appreciate their children, thinking that it would make them docile. Rather they would condemn them, thinking they would improve from their current level to their desired level.

In my view, in such situations, either they end up developing personality of their child as Aggressive or submissive, which is an animal instinct. Such parents are usually devoid of emotions and self-centered. They think that their children are like abetting horses and the chance they put on horse, needs to win. As I mentioned that their own submissiveness or aggressiveness is based on a particular situation. First approach is Aggressive (An animal instinct), trying to overpower the other person. If the other person becomes aggressive, they will get into submissive mode (An animal instinct). What is likely to happen if they get suppressed?

They would get into over thinking mode and their brain gets engaged in handling the situation and overpowering the other person with their next move. It is like playing chess in their mind. They would be playing all 64 boxes from their side. Many of the time, situation is such that they know that they can not play an upper hand over other person, their brain will be directed towards cursing other person, bad mouthing about other person and keep an animosity with another person so that they can settle their score when they get the first opportunity. My observation with such people is that they are always hero in their story who is never defeated or who never accepts defeat, irrespective of taking beating and bashing from other end. They would always present even their defeat or bashing in such a glorious manner, to portray themselves as invincible. Such persons are usually highly manipulative. To prove their point, they would go to any extent even to the extent of tarnishing image of their members of the family. They do not have any remorse for their bad behaviour or actions and would always hold others responsible for their actions. They want to be respected however would treat others as dirt. Such persons would pretend to be kind to others but soon would condemn to whom they showed kindness. Such persons are highly insecure. They want others to trust them but they, themselves do not trust anybody.

I read a quotation which says, “Sign of intelligence is an awareness of one’s own ignorance”.  “I know all” is the biggest hinderance in identifying an individual’s lack of knowledge. Having some knowledge of a subject or handling a situation from a single perspective and not yielding appropriate outcomes, does not mean that knowledge is limited or there is dearth of other approaches to a given problem or set of problems. Why an individual is not able to comprehend a situation fully? It could be a probable lack of knowledge about that situation or other options are not explored fully. There is another quotation which says, “Mutually exclusive Collectively Exhaustive”. Means that every individual has an idea which is exclusive and if many ideas are put on the table, collectively ideas become exhaustive. However, one has to respect ideas of others and give due respect and acknowledgement of others’ ideas. In such situations also, manipulative minds would like to take credit of others’ ideas and would project as their ideas. In the entire process, such persons lose respect in the eyes of others. Manipulative people have no remorse or guilt of claiming and projecting others’ ideas as their, since they want to be successful at any cost. They may compensate others in form of some money or exhibited kindness. Such persons do not mind in using pretended behaviour of anger, punishment or revealing inner secrets of an individual which he or she might have confided in good faith to an insecure, manipulative person. Another observation of mine is that such people, in crisis situation of their life would give a distress call, even to those to who they hurt and caused harm and would expect them to help & support them with no carte blanche. They may use people dependable on them as a shield with emotional appeal. Irony is that moment distress situation is over, they come back to natural self and start beating the drum of their heroism and start misbehaving and mistreating people who helped them in distress. They always blame external center of loci for their given situation and would get into blame game. They would not do introspection to understand the given situation or analyze internal center of loci. E.g., he or she deceived me, he or she put me in this situation, others are responsible for my given situation. Another interesting aspect of such people’s behaviour I have observed is they tell a lot of lies to themselves and try to repeat and rehearse that lie as a truth in their mind till the time they are convinced that their lie is a truth. They keep around a battery of people to support their truthful lies as alibi and prove that lie of theirs is a truth. If you try to contradict their truthful lies, they become aggressive (An animal instinct) and would try to harm you. If you maintain a distance from such people, they will try to reach you indirectly through other people to manage their life if you are instrumental is being useful to them in some or the other way. They would tell stories about the contributions they made to your life, to others and now is the time to pay back, being manipulative. As an individual, if you try to forget everything of their misbehavior and wrongdoing of past and start a fresh and approach them as a new start, they will portray that it is your need which has brought you to his or her door and would like to keep an upper hand in the situation, being manipulative. They are wet blankets who can convert any happy moment into traumatic situation. Such people are never at mental peace as their mind is busy in tackling situations which have risen due to their actions which may cater to their purpose.

To feel contented and being at mental peace with self, as an individual, one should never pass on the burden of their struggle to their children and should create an environment which is helpful in nurturing their brain and life in happiest possible way. One should be self- aware and should seek feedback from others to be better self. One should take a human approach with an assertive approach (Not an animal instinct) to be able to put forth their point of views to others. At the same time, one should be empathetic to understand others point of view with an open mind and pick up the relevant point of view which applies to their life. One should also acknowledge the contributions made by others in their life and be thankful to support received from them. Attitude of Gratitude makes one human. Humans have emotions and need to be treated humanly and not just by being rational. One should adapt to approaches which reverses Iceberg which has 75% of portion where experiences are not good. One should work towards improving inside out rather than outside in. Means becoming self- aware, improving on what you are not good at or continuing with what you are good at and image projected to others is your real self.

By Raj