BEFORE YOU FIRE THE SHOTS

Before I proceed, let me tell you a short story

A teacher teaching Maths to four -year-old Ram asked him, “If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have?”

With a few seconds Ram replied confidently, “Four!”

The dismayed teacher was expecting an effortless correct answer (three).

She was disappointed. “May be the child did not listen properly,” she thought.

She repeated, "Ram, listen carefully".

"It is very simple".

"You will be able to do it right if you listen carefully"

"If I give you one apple and one apple and one apple, how many apples will you have?”

He had seen the disappointment on his teacher’s face.

He calculated again on his fingers.

But within him he was also searching for the answer that will make his teacher happy.

This time hesitatingly he replied, “Four…”

The disappointment stayed on teacher’s face.

She remembered ram loves strawberries.

She thought maybe he doesn’t like apples and that is making him lose focus.

This time with exaggerated excitement and twinkling eyes she asked

“If I give you one strawberry and one strawberry and one strawberry, then how many will Ram have?”

Seeing the teacher happy, young Ram calculated on his fingers again.

There was no pressure on him, but a little on the teacher.

She wanted her new approach to succeed.

With a hesitating smile young Ram enquired, “Three?”

The teacher now had a victorious smile. Her approach had succeeded.

She wanted to congratulate herself.

But one last thing remained.

Once again she asked him, “Now if I give you one apple and one apple and one more apple how many will you have?”

Promptly Ram answered, “Four!”

The teacher was aghast.

“How Ram , How?” she demanded in a little stern and irritated voice.

In a voice that was low and hesitating young Ram replied, “Because I already have one apple in my bag.”
source

There is a lot of lessons to learn from this story which I am going to point out

i. This story relates to our everyday life and it describes how many of us are too quick to judge people without hearing them out. It also makes us understand that we should avoid castigating others or making wrong conclusions about them without hearing them out

ii. When someone provides you an answer that is quite different from yours, you need to understand the fact that diversity in thinking is what makes us different. So, never be too quick to despise what you hear from someone. It might just be that they are actually viewing things from a different perspective from yours.

iii. Quite often, we want others to view things from our own perspectives which is impossible. The next time someone gives an answer or opinion from his own perspective, kindly sit down and gently ask ”can you please help me understand”?

iv. Another thing I will point out is that, some of us may ask our rich friend or uncle for money and if they can't provide us the money we quickly conclude that they are stingy or useless. It might just be that they are also going through hard times which you may not know.

v. Some of us hear one side of a story and quickly pass our judgment without hearing from the other party. It's an act of foolishness to pass a judgement from a one-sided story.

vi. Many even hold grudges against others not because the person actually offended them, but because other people have labelled the person a bad person.

vii. I can go on and on to highlight endless instances where you seem to be convinced about your judgment based on an erroneous observation or misconstrued information yet you could be so so wrong.

viii. Anytime someone provides an answer that is different from what you expect, don’t think they are completely wrong. It could be that they see thing from an angle you may not have thought about yet and no matter how seemingly sure a situation may present itself, be sure to know the facts from the people or person involved before passing judgment.

ix. No matter how it seems, before you fire that shots, always try to find out the facts else you may make terrible judgments that may jettison potentially wonderful union and possibly ignite avoidable resentment.

I hope this makes sense to someone.

Thank you all for reading

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