The Triple-Filter Test

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"Well, no," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and…"

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"

"Umm, no, on the contrary…"

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

Moral of the Story:

We must be careful what to listen. The sub-conscious mind has enormous power and negative words can affect our relationship or behaviour for that person. This is how people after marriage send their parents to old age homes and leaves them.

In corporate world that’s how the politics is played to downgrade the person who may be working best. Competitor will keep telling negative on daily basis and your mind perception changes over few days or months toward individual. One need to work with open eye to tackle this as you may be victim of same.

The same is true in Saas Bahu story where bahu has upper hand for changing the thoughts of Husband without his knowledge and one day he revolts against his own mother or father.