Variety makes us stronger and doesn't add to our differences

"When life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddle!".

Last month, while taking a rest for a week due to a medical reason, I experienced the silver lining of so-called?"digital detox"?(in the Covid times, a much-required process for every one of us).

"Doing nothing" and lying on the bed for most of the day, I got the opportunity?(read: pushed to the corner)?to reflect upon myself, my perspectives, my observations, my learning, and the list goes long. A process - I didn't do enough justice for a long-long time.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom - Aristotle

The outcome was an overwhelming experience. Numerous instances (starting from school days) came to my mind where I could have evolved into a better version of myself by uncovering the perspective of others. In a nutshell, if I could have elevated my understanding into compassion, collectively, we would have achieved much more than what I did by myself.

Differences in experience, points of view, and opinions aren't what pulls us apart. It's what pulls us together - Tracee Ellis Ross

To help us pull together, we need to elevate into being more compassionate. There is a need for variety, and we cannot afford to have more "like us" in the group.

The question is, how can we do that? My takeaway...

• Perception, in reality, develops quicker than we think: Our mind subconsciously gathers information (cues) at large and retains those that help us prove our belief system to be accurate. And, we need to be careful about it. Whenever we think of someone in a particular manner, we need to pause and ask ourselves, "why am I thinking this way?". Are there biases or any inhibitions which are driving our views? Is it just one side of the story? And, most of the time (as I reflect), my inhibitions/perceptions created my opinions.
• Hand-Holding doesn't serve the purpose of Helping: The stepping stone of my professional journey had a profound impact on my working style. As a young trainer in a training institute, I used to teach college students & working professionals how to use a computer system with a 5.25" floppy drive and its applications. I used to help them take baby steps and repeated them every hour & day, be it in the classroom or the lab. The academia in me used to be the differentiating factor for me, which (unfortunately) I complied for a long time until I realized the difference between them and the current generation of professionals. In the present time, being like a lighthouse?(and not playing the role of a ship's captain) helped me experience different ways of achieving tasks and in lesser time.
• Everyone who comes into our life is for a reason: How often thoughts like "it is so easy, how you can't do it" or "I am not made for this/not my cup of tea" came to your mind or you have said it. For me, it will be?numerous. One example, blogging is something that I always kept in the category "not my cup of tea". Nineteen months back, when my wife inspired me to write (read: insisted I should start writing), I realized the size of the cup was smaller than what I thought :) Similarly, eight years back, when one of my seniors asked me,?"how do you manage to build a good rapport with team members and colleagues easily?". The immediate response was one of my dumbest answers,?"I believe it's my strength". At that moment, I never realized that I should have thought about "how do I do it?". The gist: our strengths are the savior for others. Similarly, our weaknesses are strengths for someone. And we all need to help each other in our evolution journey.
• Let me figure it out on my own: Saying?"I need help!"?is closer to a failure (read: sin or disaster) to me. My professional journey has been like the fictional character of Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones Jr. Every step has been into unknown territory, requiring me to unlearn & learn, struggling/failing, and in the end, finding success. I used to be proud of it. Now in hindsight, I realize how ignorant I was. At the beginning of my tenure, my articulations (hard work, sincerity, and resilience) were appropriate; however, as I started evolving as a seasoned professional, these attributes created hurdles in my path. There are so many things one has to learn, followed by mastering them. It is humanly not possible to achieve them. So, it is far more effective to raise our hands and seek help rather than struggling by ourselves. To put it simply, the best fictional example in today's time will be, in the end, it took more than just Iron Man to defeat the mighty Thanos.
• It takes two to tango: Like it or not, it is valid for both situations, i.e., the best and worst times of our life. In successes, we should recognize contributions by others; similarly, we should accept our faults in failures. The sooner we implement it, the faster we will work cohesively and push for a win-win outcome by building on our strengths and minimizing the roadblocks that emerged from our weaknesses.

That is the strangest thing about the world: how it looks so different from every point of view - Lauren Oliver.