Let’s talk about something called Reliance today. We come across a lot of people and information all day long. What should we rely upon to make our decisions? Let’s get into it.
The first so-called reliance is the phrase I am sure you have heard over and over again. Don’t kill the messenger. It is so true. We often get bog down into who brings the message rather than the message itself. Who brings the message has absolutely nothing to do with what the message is. We must rely on the message and not the messenger. I have seen this playing out in the corporate environment quite a bit. There are certain people who are resistant to an incoming CEO and whatever they say, for some reason is wrong because this person is an outsider if you will. In doing so they miss out on opportunities to work together as an organization and make forward progress towards pressing issues of the day. You see we all have these inherent biases against certain individuals or groups of people. Because of those biases, we tend to focus on the messenger as opposed to the message itself. This wrong reliance is detrimental to our own progress.
The next reliance is on the meaning. Rely on the meaning and not the words. This is a little difficult to understand so let’s break this down. Sometimes what the words are trying to tell you is hidden. What we call reading between the lines. What is not said out loud is more important than just the words. One can play with the words but what they are trying to tell us behind those words is more important. This is not an easy skill to develop for sure. This is where perception comes into play. Developing good perception is very important and for that, we need a clear mind. We must learn to develop perception. It takes a lifetime to develop this. Most people in my experience have difficulty reading between the lines. So hopefully all of you youngsters would learn to develop this. One way to develop this is to take in a diverse set of information. If you read or listen to all sides of an argument, you would be better able to develop perception. Unfortunately, we live in this conformation bias age where everyone has a limited number of sources of information and they all just confirm our inherent biases. The social media algorithms also contribute to this problem since they tend to display what you like and have no opposing viewpoint.
The next reliance is intention. This is very important. What we should rely upon is the intention of the speaker and not our own interpretation of what they are trying to tell us.
When we understand what it is the speaker intended to communicate, if we then continue to think about each word and expression, we will grasp the concept much faster. This is similar to getting conceptual knowledge before looking for a detailed understanding.
If we misinterpret what is said and then think of more words, we’ll never stop till we run out of thoughts, but all the while we’re only straying further and further from the meaning. Like children playing, we’ll only end up exhausted.
Even for a single word like “and” or “but”, when taken out of context, there’s no end to what it might mean. Yet if we understand what is meant, then with that the need for the word is finished. Remember the classic, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is? Sorry, I could not resist!
When it comes to the meaning, we should know what is provisional and what is definitive, and rely not on any provisional meaning, but only on the meaning that is true definitively. I refer to the example of Yudhisthir confirming that Ashwathama was indeed dead in the epic battle of Mahabharat. Here, Yudhisthir meant Ashwathama the elephant and not the warrior but people took his words literally on their own peril.