January 14, 2018

Obsession

          There was a spiritual seeker, apprentice under a himalayan guru. He was so obsessed with his own spiritual upliftment, that he abhorred the various tasks assigned to him by his guru. He considered doing daily chores of ashram  like cooking, cleaning etc.,  to be waste of his precious time.So, he  decided to leave the ashram to focus single-mindedly on his spiritual upliftment.

        He visited his guru  12 years later, to showcase the mystic power he had learnt. His guru asked him what did he learn in 12 years. He announced boastfully-" I can produce fire from my mouth."Saying thus, he opened his mouth and spewed flames of fire, just like the mystic dragon.

          His guru remarked-"Even a simple match-stick can produce fire. You have wasted 12 years of  your life  to learn producing fire from your mouth, which can be done by a  match-stick."

           So,the moral of the story is that we need to pause from time to time to review our obsession with fluency. It is very natural for a PWS to be obsessed with fluency. But fluency in speech  is a part of communication skills, not the alpha and omega of it.In today's world , communication skills include written communication(social media like FB, whatsapp,twitter.,official  emails, formal written letters etc..), body language etc. , along with speech. So , working on communication skills in a holistic manner, and investing our time in learning important  life skills (which can be different for different people, to each his/her own) would be far better approach towards living life. 

3 comments:

Satyendra said...

very true Abhishek! The whole stammering scene is obsessed with fluency! I think, we need to take stammering out of "Fluency Disorder" paradigm and look at it in a very different context- different framework.. If Supreme court is willing to re-look at Homosexuality in India, why dont we, the pws, do the same with stammering? Why dont we see it as a social issue, a diversity, a struggle between private and public self etc.? Einstein said- doing same thing again and again and expecting different results, is madness! Have we had enough of this madness? I hope so!!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts...

Avinash Horo said...

Excellent analogy made by you Abhishek ji. In our bad times we miss the big picture i.e fluency is not every thing that we should seek.Instead we should ask ourselves whether by dwelling into our past happenings has it done any good. Accomplishment of fluency should not be set as the benchmark rather how to be an effective communicator.

deepak said...

Well said!! We know these things ,it is just that we need reminders from time to time