Bias

How many times you were frustrated because another person was having biased opinions?

Well, you are not alone. Everybody has felt that way or still feeling in day to day life. The fact is all of us has one or the other (in various degree) biases. Here is the list of biases to watch out for. All of us come from a wide variety of backgrounds, culture, environment, and upbringing. Our thoughts have been influenced based on the numerous interactions that we had so far with our family, friends, teachers to colleagues. There is no single person who doesn’t have any biases. Practically it would be difficult to have a bias-free thought process.

So what to do?

The first step is to spot that you are having a biased opinion,

second is to understand the reason and

finally plan/action on how to overcome.

Different but Same

It is a beautiful Sunday Morning at Melbourne, Australia. Everyone at my house are in the weekend mood and here I am , sitting in one corner thinking about what should I write. It’s almost 3 months for me in this multi-cultural ‘world no. 1 best city to live in‘ city. When I first stepped in to this country, I was quite unsure about whether I will be able to adjust with Australian People even though I did some reading online about Australian people and culture. Initially I was very quite in talking to people thinking I might hurt their feelings considering my open nature. From my reading, my impression was that people over here will be very different. It is true in some sense but not true in absolute sense. People over here are quite different in terms of language they speak, the kind of food they like to eat, the kind of clothes they wear and the way they live. I think that difference is because of the past history and environments. Over the past three months, I had many opportunities to talk to many local people. I spend almost  40 minutes daily in commutation and that is blessings in disguise as during that time, I have opportunity to closely observe and understand local people. As I mentioned before, people are quite different in one sense but on the other side we are all same. “The way we think about our partner”, “the way we think about our children”, “our love for children”, “emotional attachment with some of friends and family members” and “respect for our parents” are all same. Stephen Hawking has rightly said :

We Are All Different, But We Share The Same Human Spirit. Perhaps It’S Human Nature That We Adapt And Survive. – Stephen Hawking

I have traveled a lot in different parts if India and had similar observation.

Diwali : As We Grow

Diwali is popularly known as “Festival of Lights”. For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. For Jains, Diwali marks the attainment of moksha or nirvana by Mahavira. Diwali commemorates the return of Lord Rama, along with Sita and Lakshmana, from his 14-year-long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people of Ayodhya, the Capital of Rama, illuminated the kingdom with earthen diyas and by bursting firecrackers.

I am not going much deeper into history in this post. For more details on Diwali , please read this . To continue my series of As We Grow: Navratri ,  Friendship Day ,  I am going to write about change in the way of “Diwali” celebration.  For a child the most exciting part is they get Diwali vacation , lots of sweets and they can play games all the day with their friends after completing their Diwali homework. Moreover they have lots of fun by bursting firecrackers. For college students they plan to visit new places during small vacation. There is not much difference till they started working/become professional. Once they start working at some company they have only few days of leave. They could not enjoy much.However there is always celebration at compan but it is “professional” celebration For them the most exciting part is they can be at their home town for few days. Although if someone is working near his/her hometown , he/she can enjoy more. However the charm they had when they were child is gone.  For Mothers, they have lots of work to do. This is the time of year when they clean up old things . And they keep themselves busy making lots of sweets. My favorite sweets are ghughra , kaju katri . My mom makes the best ghughra. 🙂

After Diwali there is Hindu New Year (Often known as Vikram New Year). On this day people wish there relatives a new year. And almost for a week people visit their near relatives’ house to wish new year. Earlier people used to have communication with their relatives often but because of the modern  lives they are living sometimes they can see their relatives once a year and that is new year.Diwali is festival of five days.Dhan Teras(It is considered an auspicious day for buying utensils and gold, hence the name ‘Dhana’.) ,Naraka Chaturdashi (kali Chaudas) (It signifies the victory of good over evil and light over darkness) , Diwali , New Year (It is celebrated as the first day of the Vikram Samvat calendar, in Gujarat.), Bhai Bij (on this day, brothers and sisters meet to express love and affection for each other) People illuminate their houses with Diyas and during these days all houses look very beautiful. I want to give one suggestion: From whatever culture you belong , always try to enjoy each and every festivals because when you move to new area/country/culture you are going to miss your place.ex

You can not Expect Everyone to be Yourself

This post is for every single person on this earth. If you have not experienced it before, you will surely experience it in your life. You have experienced with your friends , colleagues , classmate , cousins , neighbor and many more. There are situations when someone make you think  “How one can behave such way? That is not fair.” But my dear friend as the title says you can not expect everyone to be like yourself. Almighty GOD has made everyone unique. Everyone has their own belief , their own culture , their own value as well as their own thinking process. Probably what you feel for others , the same feeling someone had for you at different situations.

The other situation can be “Good things always happens to others.” Then I would say “You are also “others” for someone else.” So respect each and every person you meet.