October 7, 2012

When a bit of kindness and patient listening means.......

Firoz was ready for his  internal exam in College. He seemed confident of keeping up his momentum of being a class topper. On his way towards college, he found a kid bleeding profusely near the 'traffic signal'. It seemed like  an accident.

Without any unnecessary delay, Firoz placed the kid carefully inside the car along with  the kid's father who seemed to have sustained a minor injury and rushed  his way towards the hospital's emmergency section.

Firoz's shirt had blood stains and it perplexed him for a while. Few moments from then he realized that he missed his crucial internal exam which would adversely impact his Final Grades.

Completely wavered of what his future would unfold, he reached his college in a jiffy and narrated the entire incident to Professor Mathew in a candid & lucid manner. The professor keenly listened to him and asked him if he could hug him. Firoz recieved a tight hug from his unassuming professor. Prof Mathew agreed to allow him to write the exam but with a 'condition'.

The condition was that Firoz's passing marks in the re-scheduled exam would be 60 as against 40 out of 100. Suddenly the lingering effect of that hug did not seem encouraging to Firoz anymore. Prof Mathew explained that he deserved aswell as earned this exclusive benchmark. Firoz deserved it because he got extra time to prepare for the exam and earned it because he was amongst the most promising students in the class.

Firoz found the decision unfair and wrote his exam with a heavy heart on a different date. When the results got declared, Firoz was delightfully surprised as he again topped the exam. Prof Mathew did not seem surprised at all.

Today Firoz is a career coach who helps his clients by providing  a purpose & direction to their career. Sometimes when his clients complain about slow career progression he tells them about the accident many years back near the traffic signal. Everyone in the traffic signal were busy in their race on that day. Their respective races were important to them. Even Firoz's race towards his exam was important that day but he forgot about his race on that day. Many years down the line, today he is much ahead of his batchmates because of the patient listening and kindness of Prof Mathew. Prof Mathew enamoured Firoz with the subtle message that "Sometimes there will be those priorities which will indeed seem much more important than our respective races but that momentory loss will not determine our long term fulfillment or even accomplishments in life.  'Goodness' and 'Cynicism' can never coexist. Choose 'Goodness' over 'cynicism'."

Today Firoz  gives seemingly tough advice to his clients much like Prof Mathew did many  years back.

Irrespective of whether you are playing the role of Firoz or Prof Mathew, play your role with empathy, logic & patience. There are many who will overtake you with short cuts but do not loose your goodness at any cost and do not be 'cynical' at any cost. You might be well ahead of the driver who overtook you in the next signal itself ;-)



1 comment:

Abheek said...

wonderful read....very motivating