What I see, I learn

Life is indeed the biggest teacher. We learn from experiences, mistakes, stupidity and most importantly others. It is said that one of the best kinds of learners are those who can learn from others.

However, it is easier said than done. We often tend to ignore the goodness in others or even the misery of others. We are too busy in ourselves to learn from other’s experiences, mistakes or good deeds. In fact, we are too busy to even pause to notice someone if not necessary.

Even then, there are certain incidences in life, which remain with us. We can never forget the moment when we first learnt that lesson. These are the lessons we learnt by seeing someone we admired or idolized.

I have had few such incidents in my life.

First lesson I learnt was from a boy I had a crush on – He was a football player, and his team played against my school. We had a certain level of rivalry that reached up to coaches. I admired this boy from coaching and knew he was playing. Therefore, even without any interest in football I sat for the match. Football is high energy sport, everyone was running and falling all the time. Somewhere in the middle of the match the forwarder of my team fell. He was basically knocked down wrongly by his opponent. This boy that I had a crush on was the goal keeper. That was the moment I really admired him. When the forwarder from our team fell, even after being in opposition he moved forward and helped the boy stand. He also confessed on his team’s behalf that it was a foul and the opposition should be allowed penalty. Fully knowing, if the penalty turns into the goal they would lose and he would be out of the team.

In the age that we were, we were usually mean and bashful. In that situation, I admired his compassion and learnt to put others before myself.

Second lesson I learnt from a boss I admired – She was my first boss. Probably that was one reason I was fully in awe of her. I learnt from her to be polite and never say negative about someone. From the day one I joined, I realized that she was putting up against a bad team. There were people who were plotting her exit. A boss who made each approval difficult and general colleagues who called her snob because she never gossiped. For a while, even I found it a bit weird. However, soon after joining we became more like friends due to hardly any age difference. Even after we started to hang out post work, she never said a single bad word for people who constantly challenged her and tried to demean her. So one day I confronted her. Her reply almost shocked me. She said that she was trained to not notice these things; they didn’t matter and thus should not be mentioned. She explained about a research that proves that words affect the development in water molecules and said that since our body is made of 60% water, bad words and thoughts affect that water too, resulting in poor health. Therefore she tried to not think about it at all.

Third lesson was taught to me by a friend – We were having our dinner at a roadside stall. We sat in our car and the stall boy had passed us our food through window. Before we began, there was a knock on the window. We turned to see a beggar covered with a yellow plastic to save himself from rain asking for alms.

I have read reports and done some research on beggary, and therefore do not like to encourage the activity. I understand the trading and trafficking that happens in this sector. I term it as an occupation for many and dislike it.

I turned my face and began to eat. However, my friend rolled the window down and called him on the other side. He got out of the car and began to talk to him. He asked him where he was from and where he slept at night. He asked him if he was trafficked and needed any help. He shared half of his food with him and ordered a meal from him. He took him to the stall and sat with him. He paid the bill and then came back to the car. He did not pay him in cash but fed him well. With his action, he taught me to trust people and help the needy in our own innovative ways.

I am sharing what 'I Saw and I Learnt' at BlogAdda.com in association with DoRight.in.