Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

“Each of us has grown up with values, and taught to be kind to everyone around us. But we often exhibit a behavior of dependency – we are nice to people only when they are nice to us. If they behave wrongly with us in small or big ways, we feel an impulse to strike back in the name of tit for tat or an eye for an eye. We copy people’s wrong behaviors and give up our inherent goodness.

People behave with us differently on different days, depending on their mood, nature, circumstance, perspective or environment. They may argue, betray, scold or ignore me. There is always a chance of them being rude or disrespectful. We have three options:

1/To reflect their behavior and deplete our virtues,

2/To absorb their behavior and go into pain, and

3/To transform their energy by radiating our inherent goodness. If we keep copying people’s behaviors, we lose our own identity and virtues. It’s their life, their energy, their karma and their destiny. We need not respond the same way as they behave. We have the power to be nice to everyone, including with those who are not right to us.

Understand people and don’t hurt them back. Let them be their way, you be yours. Let your behavior be a reflection of your personality. Don’t copy their behaviors and don’t reflect their personality.”