Welcome to My Blog - Bhushan Kachru

                                     My Way or the Highway

                        

                                                                                          Photo-CreativeFollowership.com/highway

‘My way or the highway’ is principally an American lingo originated during 70s. The jargon, its usage and meaning off course is in use since long.  It possibly suggests a challenge like "take it or leave it". It suggests that if you are not in a position to confront the decision, you ought to accept the decision of the superior. Failing which you may suffer penalty such as being fired from the job. The more I think about the idiom, the more I get convinced that primarily it may be an offshoot of one’s attitudinal and stubborn characteristics. Who knows possibly these roots are from one’s childhood and maybe reflections of the upbringing, nurturing and rearing at home. Often pampering and spoilage of some children during childhood makes matters at times worst. I am reminded of a Kashmiri saying which translates to “He expects to have a flying animal” used generally for a pampered child’s expectations.  There may be some toddlers who in spite of counselling yet take their own call. For example, if you tell a toddler not to touch a lighted candle, he will still go ahead till he burns his finger. On hindsight, I feel many married couples (either wife or husband) occasionally enact the theme of the above lingo to give dent to their occasional frustrations and also at times to portray who is running the show.

It is difficult to predict how the usage of the above slang and lingo originated. However, purely as a wild guess, there may have been  few incidents in the past of an individual’s childhood responsible for a stubborn behavior. For example, when kids go to play with children for the first time; their experience is not memorable since they are left alone with strangers for the first time. Some smart ones bully them and make them cry while others look at them and make fun, few start to play with them. By the time they understand and became receptive to their surroundings, happiness, excitement, fear, insecurity and a host of other feelings have already risen in the subconscious mind. Similarly, whenever you are in an unfamiliar situation like the first day in job etc., you feel stressed, fearful and out of place and your subconscious mind immediately flashes childhood memories of your first experiences in interacting with others in life. What then is ‘subconscious mind’? It represents the data-bank for everything, which is not in your conscious mind and stores your beliefs, previous life experiences, memories, skills, feelings, cultural values etc. Everything that you have seen, done or thought is also there. 

As said earlier, most of your beliefs are of childhood creation and as you go on in life, additions and alterations take place. At times I feel beliefs are like carvings on the stone that is hard to erase. Sometimes even if you are told that your belief is wrong and misrepresents your personality, yet there are chances that you would hardly budge away from it because you have grown up putting with it since childhood. Also possibly these beliefs may have helped you temporarily in the past. Let us briefly understand that a stubborn individual true to his personality trait is determined to do what he wants and refuses to do anything else. He may possibly have huge arguments because he is so stubborn and often it is difficult to move/ change/ deal with him.

 Take a look at the following story

A forest had animals and also a hunter who hunting rabbits. Many a time he was advised by his friends to give up hunting. “You should stop being cruel to animals," said his friends. “I know what I am doing. Please do not advise me". Once the hunter was planning to go on another hunting expedition, Just then a saint happened to pass by. Seeing the hunter holding a rope, a spear, a knife, the saint said to the hunter, “It seems you are going to catch an animal." “Yes, I am going to catch a rabbit in the forest," replied the hunter.“ But what will you do with the rabbit?" asked the saint. “I will cut and roast it and eat it up. Will you stop me?" asked the hunter. The behavior irritated the saint. “No why should I stop you! I only wanted to tell you that killing innocent animals is a sin. All sinners get punished some day in their lives." The hunter replied arrogantly, “let me see who comes to punish me." The saint smiled and sat there on meditation. After some time, the hunter was back holding a rabbit by its ears. “Now I will cut its throat and roast it No one will come to punish me," he said to the meditating saint. Just as the hunter was about to raise his knife, it slipped out of his hand and landed on his foot. He screamed, letting go of the rabbit. The hunter’s foot was badly cut. He was in pain. “I have now realized how cruel and stubborn I have been. I will give up hunting completely,"

A stubborn individual is a great resistor even if it is well reasoned to him and generally refuses to accept defeat. You may often hear parents shouting on their teenager if he/she refuses to accept parent’s advice “What the hell is going on here. Why can’t you agree to what your Mom is saying? ”This clearly seems reflective of teenager’s stubbornness and may often develop into authoritative behavioral trait as he grows in age. For example, one finds individuals with such behavioral characteristics some times in families, community or even in the organizations. An autocratic leadership generally found in project based organizations where time is a big constraint and therefore participative leadership doesn’t work well. There may be rare occasions when a good idea suggested by a junior colleague may not only be shot down and discarded by a cranky senior colleague. He with the egoistic behavioral attitude may speak along the lines of, “There’s only one right way, and that’s my way”?  At times it may not just end here but be prepared to listen to subsequent instructions.  These may be reflective of veiled threats that if you don’t feel like following it, then follow the exit door?

 

 For using the above lingo, one has to have a great amount of self-belief, confidence levels, good work performance, being efficient etc. The authoritative individuals rule with an iron fist, lack humility and empathy. They are dictatorial all the way. Some individuals in the corporate circles may have attitudinal issues/stubborn behavioral problems, top down communicators. These individuals have dictatorial tendencies and are generally poor listeners, lack humility and empathy. John Stoker, communication expert feels that, “Authority — when abused through micromanagement, intimidation, or verbal or nonverbal threats — makes people shut down and productivity ceases.”

                                                                  Image-EnglishOnline Power idioms

Steps to Reactivate Yourself

1 Your beliefs are like seeds and try segregating worn ones from the good ones? You are the producer and director of hundreds of beliefs in your mindset since your baby days. Most of these may be tattered with the changing time. List your ideas about work, relationships, people and situations in general. Against each, write whether these have created problems in your growth and the ones that need changing. Against these limiting beliefs, write positive convictions after deep thinking. Often when you bring out beliefs from a hidden cave in your mind, it helps you to plan and implement corrective measures. Several times in a day repeat the positive enabling beliefs and gradually start their use and forget the old and worn out one’s. Surely not an easy task but calls for determination and seriously working on your mindset and thoughts. For example;-

 

In a study conducted by scientists, ‘some people were given coffee to go to bed and the others were given milk. The next morning the people who drank coffee complained of a bad night's sleep. And the people who drank milk said they had a good night's sleep. Unknown to the participants, the caffeine had been removed from the coffee and added to the milk! The subjects believed that caffeine would keep them awake and the milk would help them sleep’. 

 

2 I feel both as a senior family member as also managing employees in organizations, empathy may usually be missing. Some of you may sometimes feel that being empathetic reveals perhaps being week. The good old culture of command and control, fear, job insecurity and bullying is a thing of past. It may never produce desired results. In-fact often it backfires. Everyone from children, family members, colleagues and employees etc. look for inspiration and not threats and pressure tactics

 

Bhushan Kachru

 Blogger

 

.