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.
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