How do you instill good values?

How can we instill good values whether in our child, our juniors or our subordinates? Is there a way that allows us to transfer good moral values whether it is integrity, perseverance, kindness or compassion? In my opinion there is no easy way.

As opposed to our academic lessons where we understand things, values need to imbibed and internalized. We cannot intellectualize values, we need to internalize it.

These are my thoughts on this difficult topic.  Please feel free to come up with your ideas.

Futility of reason and explanations: Values can never be transmitted by way of explanations and reasons. However sound your reasons may be the other person will either acknowledge or disagree with your views. It will never go deep into the psyche. Reason and logic can be used as supporting elements but never as the primary cause for transmitting values.

The strength of mythology and fables:  Mythology and fables are usually good tools to transfer values. A story has a soul and is a good way to transmit values. So whether it patient Job or the valiant Arjuna stories are pretty powerful tools. Aesop’s tales and other fables are also excellent tools particularly in the case of the children.

Leading by example: This is another potent way to pass important values and principles to others. We always tend to look up to role models in life. A Gandhiji, a Mother Teresa or a Bill Gates is a sound example of role models in our life. It is always said that the key method to pass good values to children is by being a role model for them. Children always look up to their parents. Similarly in a corporate world the values of the CEO are usually a pointer to the way the organization is headed.

Inculcating sound values take time and requires a lot of patience. It is extremely critical that we live the values that we want to transfer to others.

For a degree in right attitude

We spend a third of our lives in academic pursuits, the initial years being taken away in basic education and the later years in the pursuit of degrees and certificates. Education in itself is important and necessary to get us through this increasingly knowledge intensive world. However the fervor with which we attempt in getting into top –rated colleges with top-rated degrees does not make a whole lot of sense. We run, or are made to run, by our family and society after law, medical, engineering, commerce degrees.

Granted, a good degree from a great college or a great degree from a good college will give you an excellent initial velocity and momentum to your career in the early years. But with time it is not the degree that will come your aid but your attitude towards life. Unfortunately there are no institutions that give a degree in right attitude. There are no institutions that teach us the importance of personal responsibility, of social obligations, the ability to solve life’s problems. Neither are we taught to maintain a constant drive to get things done, the need for patience and consistency and so on. These are essential skills that one needs in life in addition to the medical, engineering or the law degrees.

We are left to fend our lives on our own. A great many people, after the initial exuberance of a wonderful start to their career and lives dies down, tend to meander about completely lost in life. There are others who just potter or drift about in life.

“Life’s journey, not a destination” we have been told a million times. What has been left unsaid is that this journey can be to new territory, or simply in plain circles. It is what we make of it.

If we don’t have the right attitude to life we will not navigate our way in life properly. Some of us will tend to the same mechanical things ad-nauseum without getting nauseated. Others will tend to buffeted by the vagaries of fortune. Still others will be cowed down under their responsibilities and problems.

In my opinion “success in life is in the eyes of the beholder”. Life is a marathon and we need to have the right attitude in dealing with it. We should not shy away from problems. Rather we should face it head-on. We need to become expert problem solvers. We must sow seeds for our future. We must be grateful for life itself and what it has offered us. We must live every moment.

We must use the creativity of imagination, the strength of courage, the power of determination and the wisdom of patience to sculpt our lives as we live them.

Life is never a race thought it is often mentioned as one. In life you never need to get anywhere. Life is all about paving your own path in time.

You are the sculptor and surprise, surprise, you sculpt yourself!

A healthy and a right attitude can come handy at any stage in life. This does not just apply each one of us but also to our children.

We should spend more time educating our children about true values like courage, will-power, consistency and drive while they pursue their college degrees. This will take them farther in their lives.

On God and religion

Many of us believe in God. We believe in the divinity of the Creator. There are some who will pray fervently, others will chant bhajans or still others will perform rituals. To many of us thinking, praying or chanting hymns gives us a feel-good feeling. We feel a warm glow when we imagine a more powerful Creator above us.

Then there are those who will pray to God to grant them their wishes. They will pray for a long life, wealth or other rewards in life.  Others will pray to God to solve their problems in life. They will live in a imaginary world where their problems of the world is solved through divine intervention.

God to all these people is nothing more than a religious fix.

Unfortunately in all these activities we tend to turn a blind eye to the central teaching of any religion. Behind every God there is a religion. The religions teach us to practice humility, compassion, love, forgiveness and integrity.  We are supposed to avoid anger, hatred or lust.

However most of us perform ritualistic prayers or bhajans and return to our nasty selves every single time.  We forget the values that our religions propound and behave in petty ways. A Krishna Jayanthi should remind us of the need to do our duty in a selfless manner. A Christmas should make us more loving and forgiving. Buddha Jayanthi should make us more non-violent.

Many great souls have re-iterated that it is sufficient to chant the name of God. We take this literally and chant the Lord’s name mindlessly. In reality we should be reminded of the great principles in the religion and we should make a habit of practicing them.

Rather than wishing problems away and praying for divine intervention it would make better sense to confront issues while asking for God’ s assistance in making right decisions.

Rather that requesting God to grant you success and good thing’s life it is better that we take bold initiatives while remembering the sacrifices and the teachings of the religion and God.

God & religion are not fixes for our problems. In reality they are true north pointers of right action and right behavior. 

Re-program yourself

We, as human beings, like to view ourselves as the Creator’s ultimate creation, the pinnacle of perfection and so on. The human race is truly superior to all other species and the human brain a real marvel.

We like to view ourselves as possessing free will. We like to pride ourselves in being able to make intelligent choices based on the situation. But if we look closer at ourselves or human beings in general we will realize that more than 80% of our mind is pre-programmed.  We are made up of layers and layers of rules. Our conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious minds have been programmed right from the times of our birth. In the early years a lot of programming is done by our parents – “don’t do this”, “do this”, “avoid that” and so on. Later we get conditioned by our friends, our schools and society. Our inner selves are made up of millions and millions of little rules like – A person who smiles often must be good natured”, “A black cat crossing your path is bad luck” and so on. These programs are deep inside us and kick in when ever a situation triggers them.

With so much of programming most of our actions are simple reactions or results of our existing programs or conditioning. There are some who feel that man really does not have free will and all our actions in our life are pre-ordained. While that may be debatable the fact still remains that most of our actions are simply reactions which stem from our past programming.

For e.g. when somebody questions our capabilities we feel hurt. The simple reason is that we have programmed to view ourselves as smart and intelligent. When somebody questions our credentials our ego is hurt. The internal programming rules start to revolt and we get really upset. Most of the times besides getting hurt we will also tend to get angry. There may be many internal programming rules which may result in this adverse reaction. For one this may be diametrically opposite to the rule “I am the greatest”. There may be other rules also in action for e.g.  “What right does Mr. X have to question my capabilities?”, “Mr. X is inferior to me”.

There may be other times when you instantly dislike a person. This may be because he/she may be dressed outrageously. Sometimes it could be more subtle. This person or this person’s mannerism may remind you of a colleague or acquaintance who you intensely dislike.  The memory of the colleague or acquaintance along with the hate is programmed into your psyche and is triggered again.

Hence it can be seen that a large part of our reactions in this world whether it is anger, hatred, bias, sadness etc are all based on our past programming or conditioning.

We first have to recognize that these reactions are pre-programmed behavior. In a way we are reacting as robots would.

What is required of us is to gently re-program ourselves. For e.g. if somebody questions our capabilities we need to step back and take a genuine look at ourselves. Are we really lacking in some areas? Could we do better? For this we need to re-program our own opinion about ourselves. We have to rewrite the rule about our own assumed superiority. We must write it to include a realistic picture about ourselves.

Similarly when we instantly like or dislike somebody we must again question ourselves. We must look deep into ourselves and try to understand the rules that result in such an outlook.

Re-programming oneself is no simple task. After all we are trying to undo years of accumulated programs and rules.  For this to be effective we must truly make an effort to understand the real reason behind our reactions and why we need to re-program ourselves in a new way.

Many philosophers and thinkers have constantly re-iterated the need for a person to be aware of one’s thought process. This in reality is another way of saying that we need to be aware of our internal programming.

In other words to change ourselves for the better we need to re-program ourselves.

The curse of inertia

All of us come under the curse of inertia in our lives to a greater or smaller extent. How often have we postponed something, procrastinated or just felt downright lazy in doing something.  All of us are guilty of indolence and we keep accumulating a list of things to do. We are soon left with a long list of things to get done.

In fact we can rephrase Newton’s 1^st law of motion and safely claim that “A person under the spell of laziness will continue to be lazy unless acted upon by an external agency”. What typically happens is that we tend to avoid doing something because it appears distasteful. When we postpone doing it this distaste soon turns to hatred and we cannot get ourselves to doing it. We either avoid completing our tasks or just try to ignore. But it always tends to lurk in the back of our mind. Eventually this task which we chose to ignore suddenly becomes extremely urgent and we undergo enormous tension.

Then there are some who tend to keep a “to do” list. Unfortunately to a lot of people this remains a “to do” list for a long time. The list just keeps growing longer. Sometimes we just convince ourselves that certain things are unimportant and remove items from the list rather than completing them.

In my mind having an unfinished task is like having a weight attached to a chain around your neck. As you accumulate more tasks you are in reality adding more weights to this chain.

What is required of us is that we just get on with any task that we are faced with. We may face an initial resistance because of an assumed distaste for the task.  Once we get started we may find that our initial distaste was really only imagined. We may actually find that we like doing the task. It is all just in the attitude. It is really important that we do not procrastinate but get things done as soon as we can.

Completing tasks that come to us on time helps us in 2 ways. For one it keeps us light. We don’t have to live with the burden of nagging thoughts. We can live lightly and in the moment. Secondly completing tasks also gives us a sense of achievement and helps us to get more things done.

Prudence requires that we tackle the issues in a timely manner and not spend time now in completing tasks that was supposed to be done ages ago. We need to stop procrastinating. We need to build efficiency and alertness into our mental attitude and complete tasks as they come to us.

When we are more efficient we also become more effective in our lives.