Gratitude towards Unsung Heroes of our life

How thankful are we to others on daily basis? Do we acknowledge the kindness that people bestow on us? Do we care to appreciate those who perform their duty sincerely? Or we just take them for granted!

There are many people who by the virtue of performing their routine job put our life at ease. If we go on enumerating, the list will be long. So, how often do we really thank the early milk boy in the morning, newspaper hawker for timely delivery of newspaper, canteen staff for a warm cup of tea, delivery boy from online shopping stores, traffic polices for their service under scorching sun, even teacher who teaches us? When I asked this question to some of my friends, positive responses were very few.

Some people may argue that aforementioned people do not render any extraordinary job that we should be thankful of. And their reason also being that they are paid for what they do as part of their duty. Yes, I do agree that such people might not be extraordinary in their contribution to society but can you imagine the frustration they may have because of having to work for long hours in unfavorable working condition like scorching sun, dust, rain etc. And most importantly can you imagine even a single day in the absence of their services. So my question to those people who hesitate to be thankful would be:  Wouldn’t it be nice to simply thank them? Won’t it motivate them to think that they are doing a good job and encourage them to perform even better? (which in turn favors us more)

As such being thankful is in fact a worthy choice to make. The most basic advantage of being humble is that it doesn’t cost us anything but only results to gain. It is a choice which when practiced makes us happier and optimistic. It not only assists us to improve relationship with people around us but also helps us to drive out negativity and enables us to learn more from these unsung heroes of our life. So the choice is yours, whether you stop by to your unsung heroes and thank them for their service or not! 

Living Life in Peace

The contemporary world is getting more cacophonic every day. Not a single day is passed without the news of hatred in the form of bombings, killings, genocide etc. The world that we will leave for upcoming generations will be many a time more chaotic that the one which welcomed us. Though the world is getting flatter with the advent of many flattening technology, and people are rejoicing better life, at the same time some part of the world is getting left out. As the countries like the United States, Canada, etc. keep progressing; many countries in the Asia, Africa, Arab world etc. are falling apart.

The tendency of progression/regression of the countries can simply be explained based on belief on hope or humiliation. The leading countries like United States, Canada etc. are very optimistic countries and believe that there is solution to every problem and that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. These countries instill better hope to its people, encouraging them to toil hard towards more progression. As a result, they have become a dream country to 7 billion world population and thus are laboring hard to not be out of league.

In contrast there are countries driven by pessimism, often leading to state of frustration and humiliation. Most leaders of these nations keep their citizens engaged in the glory of the past without a hope of a promising future;  with  discussion of pre-historical periods and its various ‘ism’ as if they are in the 1970’s or 1980’s. Nations and people of these developing countries (e.g. Arab world) rejoice in the grandeur of the past and the image of superiority, when confronted with the concurrent economic and political backwardness, feel humiliated. These humiliated ones engage in extreme violence, which if prolonged may be a threat to whole mankind. This is exactly what is happening in the world post 9/11 incident of the American twin tower case, followed by the Iraq occupation and the current Islamic states operations.

Now the question for people and nations to decide is whether to join the league of countries that transpire hope and aspirations for the upcoming generations or the one that wants to be a threat to them. Whether to be the one to build new landmarks achievement for the future, or the one to bring the existing glory down. The remedy now being that the under-developed countries and the failed countries should enter into level of self-cure: self-introspection and confession. 

Similarly for the developed countries, they should be generous enough to inspire these left out countries to come in track of optimism. Thus the need of the time is for all countries to work together to share that pie of optimism with each-other, and bring the left-out on the track. If this part of the world which is optimistic doesn’t reach to the pessimistic one, than the latter will engulf the previous one. The sooner we realize this, the better the future will be. 

(Published on December 2, 2015, The Kathmandu Post, http://epaper.ekantipur.com/epaper/the-kathmandu-post/2015-12-02/pages/4ec8950671_2015-12-02_6.pdf )