Clever Pity

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We have all faced failure at some point in our lives. What exactly helps you recover from it? Doing well in another thing? Promises to self that you’ll do better next time? Accepting that this is just not your cup of tea? Analyzing the causes? Blaming it on something or someone? Or something else?

I have found that on most of the occasions after failing myself, what get me out of my bad mood are talks! Either self-talks or talks from a person close to me that reassure me of my abilities and bring back my faith in myself. Sounds healthy, right? Not that easy…

Humans are the most intelligent beings on earth. We are so clever; it shows in all our common habits as a race; our psychological mechanisms. We know just the tricks to protect ourselves from shame, guilt, anxiety, depression and other such negative feelings.

When we do well; when we succeed at something; when we achieve what we wanted to, we take the credit; congratulate ourselves and revel in our glory. But when we let someone down; when we disappoint ourselves; when we fail, we might exaggerate to others or even ourselves how we are unworthy or good-for-nothing or a total disappointment and then find solace in others’ consoling and reaffirming words or our own self-pity. (Oh no, you are not a failure; stop torturing yourself dear, you are a kind/ helpful/ capable/ pleasant/ attractive/ intelligent/ <possessing some other desired quality> person and you could have done it if it wasn’t for <the excuse>)

This is a mechanism to protect our ego and is even healthy in small amounts. However, it is greatly addictive. Pity is a dangerous drug! Because it is so conveniently available, it slowly kills our fear of failure. While that is good for overly anxious people, for others it might mean less motivation to avoid failure! We may unconsciously begin wishing for failure because with that comes this pleasant, pleasant feeling of being pitied and protected from responsibility. Do you think that a person wishing for failure will even try next time? No; and that will lead to more self-pity and so the vicious cycle will begin…

Break it! If you fail despite favourable circumstances, you are the reason. Quit shielding yourself, face the truth, find out what you did wrong and why and work on it next time! Do not take pleasure in others’ reassurances of your capability and soothing sugary talks nor engage in feeling inferior because it conveniently frees you of responsibility. Prove their claims when they praise you and do better next time. And then if you don’t, accept that maybe you cannot, without losing your dignity. It is okay to accept your imperfections but not okay to use them to gain sympathy and pseudo-happiness. Besides, there are always other things to be good at!

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Development and The Altruists

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I have immense respect for social workers. But being a practical person or at least trying to be one, I always questioned how significant a change these few people can bring about in such a huge population. They are truly altruistic and they face challenges that people like us can only imagine. But how much impact does their hard work really have when we consider socio-economic development at the macro level?

When we look at our history, we find that most social reformers who went against the flow and stood up for what they believed in, like Mahatma Phule or R. D. Karve for instance, were given hell during their time. It took us years to realize the worth of their work. Now, if the majority of the society was not with them, exactly how much of an influence do you think they had? In terms of statistics, how many citizens per cent really were convinced by their views and also acted on changing themselves and the society?

The answer to this would be grim. Of course, it can be countered with the fact that social reform never happens overnight and although the beginning is always difficult, truly progressive thoughts emerge undefeated in the end. In case of the two reformers mentioned above, their thoughts did not vanish. They were not only acknowledged but followed by most of the next generation. As clear indicators of this, the number of girls in schools rose steadily and family planning became a norm. Both of these far-sighted philosophies have benefited our society tremendously. But, an entire generation had to pass before the expected progress actually took place!

Contemplating this pattern, the present is depressing for today’s workers. The number of people ready to give up material pleasures and stability for a social cause is not a large one, making the ratio of each such individual to the ideal number of individuals required for successful change-making unimaginably hopeless.

This is not surprising because man, originally, is selfish by nature. We are not designed to help others but to help ourselves first. This core of our being is necessary for the survival of the fittest. By this natural rule, all development, whether social or economic, is first undertaken for our own benefit. We get educated for us, earn more and more for us and create better traditions, norms, buildings, transport, technologies, philosophies, institutions, laws and destroy outdated ones that hamper new growth, also for us.

In the pyramid of socio-economic classes, the top layer develops first and gets its sweet fruits before everyone else. Then the development gradually seeps down to the middle and lastly to the lowest layer. This process is continuous and the points reached by various classes/ societies can be extremely different at the same time.

This has been happening forever, no matter how many social workers have tried to equate the development in all the classes. How important a part then, do they play in the big picture?

Well, you know how development percolates from top down to the lowest levels? From the rich urban ‘haves’ to the middle-class to the poor ‘have-nots’ residing in the most remote places? These selfless people who live for the society are the channels, the mediators! They introduce development in the underprivileged people and poverty stricken places. They empower them to achieve a higher standard of living, motivate them to aspire to do it and enable them to live a better life in all senses of the term. They create the spark in them which goes on to light up their whole world and which pushes them upward in that pyramid. Without them, however less in numbers they are, even gradual percolation of development would be beyond us. They are a blessing for the society and for mankind. They are a ‘dua’ in Hindi as well as Marathi!

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Dissonance

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Thinking about a high-tension interview situation: so much depends on the interviewer’s feedback, both verbal and non-verbal. His/ her body language gives cues as to whether the candidate is doing well or not. Even one gesture or expression indicating disappointment or disinterest can just throw the candidate off balance, lower his confidence, make him forget what he is and knows and the company might lose a potential sound employee. Or even an approving nod might boost up his confidence so much that he forgets to be cautious even when he needs to.

Skilled interviewers are those who have learnt to hide their true opinions of the candidates sitting in front. However, even an apathetic neutral expression is hard to maintain constantly and also bad at eliciting true responses.

An interviewer needs to appear patient, reassuring and ready to truly listen, no matter what he really thinks of the candidate and what he says. In a way, he needs to appear just like a counselor who has that ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’ towards the client. They are not assigning positivity or negativity to any part of the client’s speech or deeds or feelings and thoughts; only listening with a firm positive regard for him. A big difference is that interviewers have to judge and counselors don’t. So, even if the interviewer is actually evaluating you inwardly and laughing at your answers, he would always need to look like a counselor.

I think of how I would fare if I had to do this and it’s uncomfortable. Simply put, it is like having a mask on. There’s a term in psychology for that phenomenon when you feel a particular way about something but do or say the opposite of it for some reason. It’s ‘Cognitive Dissonance.’ And the ways to deal with this mess are either to change your inner attitude to match your behaviour or change your overt behaviour to match your attitude.

You either start with firm belief that your attitude is right and then it leads to behaviour consistent with it (The interviewer thinks that the candidate is unworthy and shows disapproving signs on his face) or you analyze your behaviour and conclude that your attitude is in fact, different than what you thought and carry on with the change (Rare to happen but the interviewer tries to appear positive and reassuring and ends up actually liking the candidate).

The second one is tricky but useful in manipulating your feelings as well. Like, have you ever just pretended to like something more than you did and then began loving it for real? Or have you ever put on a happy mask for the sake of others and then were carried away so much with acting happy that you actually started feeling happy from the inside? I think this is why shallow things like food, entertainment, shopping and even aimless wandering through the city helps lift our spirits from the darkest of places.

I also think a lot could be known about a person based on his style of dealing with dissonance. People who would change their behaviour would be a little stubborn, confident of their beliefs, not really paying heed to what others might think of them and clearer in their thoughts than in their behaviour. While people who would choose to change their attitudes would be flexible, able to manipulate emotions, concerned with how other people perceive them and less clear in their thoughts than in their behaviour.

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