Taking you to a different world…

One evening I was speaking to one of my close friends – Sonal. She is a mom to two adorable daughters, who I have had the pleasure to babysit a couple of times.

Sonal is a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology, has taught the subject for years before she decided to get married and settle down with the love of her life. She was sharing with me, how her high level of engagement with her kids left her with no time for herself.

While most mothers/ parents go through this phase, she manages to cope with by adroitly balancing. She is a creative person who likes to read, paint, travel, write and is a shutterbug too. With one school going kid aged 4 and the other 8 months old; she barely has any time in hand to follow her passion. While she struggles to squeeze time for herself, she also worries about distributing equal amount of her time to both her kids. I was moved when I learned that even before their 2^nd baby had arrived, the couple had always been cautious not to let the elder one feel ignored and neglected, as most of the times we pay more attention to the younger ones, due to their inability to express.

During her conversation with me, she briefly mentioned how she managed to go through Reader’s Digest, which acted as a breather for her. She said that reading took her to a different world. The way she said it actually made me ponder that we primarily read with the intent to gain information and knowledge, or for entertainment. We do not realize what else it does to us besides the above mentioned. It helps us in forgetting where we are. It is our best friend when we want to distract our mood. It makes us dream with open eyes.

How beautifully and effortlessly it enhances our capacity to visualize what we read…how aptly had Sonal put it across…it takes you to a different world! Doesn’t it?

I am what people think of me as

A friend of mine asked me, “Who are you?” Tell me, how do you tell anyone who you are?”

It was a conversation that started from nowhere. We were just talking about my training sessions and I am unable to recollect how it made its way from the topic of perception to ‘who am I’.

I don’t know if we can simply define ourselves merely using attributes like fun- loving, witty, passionate, simple, aggressive, outgoing etc., or can we really give a definition to our persona!

We can introduce ourselves when we meet people; however, do people really perceive us the same way as we mention we are? Some of them do build an image of us based on what we tell them about our self. For instance, if I say that I am a fun loving and gregarious person, they build an unexpected expectation that I would be a part of all the events they conduct, as for them events mean fun and activity, and sociability.

I would say that people perceive us in two ways:

First one: They perceive us in the same way in which and what ‘we’ tell them about ourselves.

The second one: They perceive us the way ‘they’ think about us.

The first one is driven by us, and the second one is driven by them. Hence, everyone would have a different perception of me based on his/her interaction and association with me. So, can we conclude that “we are, what people think we are” (for them literally!)?

The ‘GAP’ in the “Communication Gap”

Ravi got a phone call one afternoon. The lovely voice from the other side was of a female who greeted him with a “hi”. She introduced herself and the organisation where she was calling from. She had Ravi’s CV with her and had called him regarding a job opening. It was a busy day for Ravi and he had to rush for a meeting. So, he quickly told her that he was more interested in a freelance option than taking up a full-time job, to which there was no response from the other end.

The meeting that was about to start in next ten minutes, kept Ravi occupied in his thoughts and he just couldn’t concentrate on the conversation with the lady. He wanted to finish the call at the earliest. After a few seconds of silence he got a (barely audible) dull response from the other side saying that they could look at the “freelancing” option (though she sounded pretty unsure). She disconnected the call saying that she would send him some details and he could revert on that mail.

Ravi took the call as any other phone call from a placement/job consultant primarily because the nature of the call appeared to him like that. It was already time for him to leave for the meeting.

It was a long meeting with action plans for him and much more than just that.

He had almost forgotten about the conversation he had with the lady. And that’s when he saw a mail in his inbox with an attached document that needed to be filled by Ravi and sent back. He was bemused to see the document and was unsure if it was meant for a freelance candidate. Despite being doubtful, he still went ahead, filled the form and sent it.

In a few hours he received a response that his CV had been shortlisted and he had to appear for an interview the very next day. A concerned Ravi quickly wrote back asking for more details regarding the project for which the interview was being scheduled, as he was only looking for freelance options. The meeting would have made sense to him if it was related to the kind of projects he intended to take up. He received a response barely 15 minutes before the scheduled interview time.

Let us look at the Gap here…Small, but a Major one…

The email received by Ravi did not ask for his confirmation or availability for the date and time mentioned. Nor did Ravi clearly share his apprehension in his response to the email, that he would not be able to attend the interview if details of the project were not shared with him.

When he received the call 15 minutes before the scheduled time, he didn’t know what to say. On the other end, for the lady too, it was not quite pleasing to learn that Ravi would not be able to come.

The interview never happened! Some of you might come across this situation.

Are there lessons for us?

The less social ones…

Recently, I read a blog written by someone known to me. It is just amazing how the most introvert people and people who are otherwise aloof, express so well when they write. They use their words so beautifully to open up to the whole world and share their thoughts in the most simplistic manner. The sense of connect that they have with their readers and vice versa is so high that it makes it difficult to believe that they actually do not mingle with people.

They have a lower drive to socialize, but they choose to do a lot of social writing. It is inexplicable that these lovely people are at loss of words when they meet someone, and they keep their conversation to the bare minimum, however; when they start penning down, words start flowing naturally.

The point that I am making here is, despite the goodness these people carry, no one really knows them well as a person, however good a writer people may know of them as. They would have many followers or probably fans but they don’t have as many friends. Do they choose to connect to people only through their writing due to low tolerance for socializing, or is it that they only write for themselves and we as readers feel that they are trying to reach out to someone? What do you think?