Keep away from flatterers

There are a million ways to earn a living. A few of these are righteous and others are not. As there are so many ways to lead a life, there are various kinds of people who adopt immoral means to earn a livelihood. Well, life goes on like that. We will have to consciously think about the right & wrong ways and then make an appropriate decision for ourselves. 

One such not so righteous path is to steal from others. However in today’s competitive world even to steal, people employ different tricks. A cunning act usually performed by fraudsters is flattery.

Flattery is defined as an excessive praise but at the same time which is insincere. The words coming out from the mouth of trickster are not genuinely flowing out from the heart. They are only being uttered to get a benefit from the person who is being praised. 

However the bitter truth is that when any person is praised, his ego becomes active, he yearns more to hear about himself being admired. Getting into such a state, he doesn’t realize if it is truth or flattery anymore and falls into the trap of a mellifluously speaking thief.

Aesop narrates a story about this which I’m sure you would have heard. A Crow found a piece of food, picked it up with its beak and perched on the branch of a tree. A wily Fox noticed this and decided to use flattery to steal food from the bird.  

The Fox greeted Crow with its sweet voice “Oh! Queen of the birds, how good looking are you today! Your eyes are shining bright in the sunlight; your feathers glitter like gold. I’m sure you have a great voice that would make even a nightingale become your disciple. Please sing a song for me now.” 

The poor Crow was amazed to hear these comments and as her ego bloated, she prepared to sing in her best voice. However as soon as she moved her beak, the food it held dropped. The trickster Fox was quick enough to grab it and didn’t even look at the bird again. The Crow then realized the real objective of the Fox.

Let us not get into such traps. Let us not give in to our ego and make a conscious effort to avoid such fraudsters who use flattery for their own gains. 

Continue Reading

Tetris Effect

Have you ever played the game of Tetris? One of the world’s most popular video games, Tetris has caught the attention of many people since its release in 1984 by a Russian game developer. The game is rated very high amongst the greatest video games of all time. So what is special about this?

The game’s concept itself is very simple. There will be different geometric shapes having four square blocks. These shapes will randomly fall down and the player is supposed to rearrange the blocks by moving and rotating with a goal of forming a continuous line of blocks without any gaps in between.

 

Interestingly the game has made much more impact than just being a piece of entertaining activity. It has made its users to think differently. People who have enjoyed this game and played for hours together have been prodded by their brains to apply this thought process in real world. 

Detailed studies have been conducted by subjecting Tetris players to experiments. The conclusion points to a positive improvement on spatial skills, perception and visualization of the players.

After all, it is a game. Yes, but according to the studies it is not just a game and hence the researchers have named this manipulation of brain as “Tetris Effect”. It explains that when people are continuously focusing on playing games such as Tetris, their brain’s responses towards activities such as thinking & dreaming change. Well it is a positive improvement, so why not make use of it? Time to play a game of Tetris!

Continue Reading

How to choose friends

Continue Reading

Mind – Stop monkeying around!

Have you ever observed a monkey? It becomes evident within no time that the animal constantly engages in some kind of activity be it chattering aloud, starting off a fight with fellow beings, performing mischievous acts, doing somersaults. To summarize, it acts restless.

Well, before we just dismiss this as a non-intelligent being that does not have any better thing to do, we need to introspect a little. The learned ones point out that our mind is just like the monkey, being constantly involved in unimportant stuff but which is interesting. 

Our mind has been habituated to behave thus. We look at the world and cry about not having the riches that someone else enjoys. We gossip around about what others do, what they possess and how will they spend their lives. We brood upon the past and get lost in nostalgia. We are engulfed about our own good and bad times that we experienced. We keep planning for the future; make lengthy to-do lists to accomplish our goals. However we fail to understand the importance of living in the present!

Swami Vivekananda quips on this topic, “The human mind is like a monkey which is drunk and bit by a scorpion. It is incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire. After the turbulence caused by desire takes possession, comes the sting of a scorpion. It brings jealousy at the success of others, and finally the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”

This animal metaphor that exists in many philosophies including Buddhism, Chinese, Zen, Tao provides some real food for thought. It is indeed hard to control such a monkey and thus our own mind. Let us find our ways to deal with it. 

Continue Reading

Characteristics of different qualities in life

Continue Reading