The certain destroyer

The biggest problem with all this sage advice is that it is seldom something that can conveniently be shoved on someone else to do. I mean, come on, why can't they give suggestions about how your neighbours or parents or someone else can sort your issues? It is ALWAYS about how your character is the reason and how you should change it for things to go well with you. As though people find it that easy to change character traits.

Tiru falls within the same category of sage advisers. If you asked him, he'd ask you, 'Did you think achieving success was easy?" Ugh!

Azhukkaru udaiyaarkku adhusaalum onnaar vazhukkaayum kedeenpadhu - Tirukkural

If you be filled with envy, it shall destroy you even if your enemies fail to do so - Loose Translation

It is sort of surprising for me, though, to hear that from Tiru. Because envy has a way of creating additional enemies for you and, eventually, they will bring you down. After all, the difference between envy and ambition is that ambition is makes you aspire to achieve what you do not yet have; envy causes you to feel that those who have achieved are less worthy than you if not outright unworthy.

Essentially, your friends can never achieve what you have not yet achieved because the moment they do you'll start envying them and talk ill of them. Which, in effect, means that you can be friends only with those who have achieved lesser than you, never with those who have been more successful.

So, yes, Tiru is right. You get opportunities only from those who can GIVE them to you. Which would mean that those people are likely to be more successful than you. If you are filled with envy, you end up alienating exactly those people who can help your progress. They do not need exactly to hate you or consider you an enemy. It is sufficient for them to see you as not worthy of the opportunities that they may be able to give you.

So, yes, even if enemies who will actively work to destroy you fail to do so, your envy will cause your downfall by alienating you from people and drying up opportunities for success. It is better to learn from success than to merely envy it.

Love begets friendship?

The idea of love begetting friendship is probably anathema in today's world. I mean, it sort of gives vibes of being permanently friend-zoned, which spells L-O-S-E-R in caps for most of today's youth. But THAT is a consequence of reading only one meaning for 'Love' - romantic love.

Romantic love is not exactly what Tiru is thinking of when he said this:

Anbu eenum aarvam udaimai; adhu eenum nanpu ennum naadaa sirappu - Tirukkural

Love begets interest in your fellow beings; that yields the excellence of friendships - Loose Translation

So, 'Love' here should be translated as affection, perhaps. Or, perhaps, it is more appropriate to consider it as 'genuine care'. Thus, in essence, if you are the sort to genuinely care for your fellow human beings, it automatically makes you take interest in them and their lives. Such genuine interest earns their friendship for you though you may not be evincing the interest with the specific notion of befriending them.

You know, this chap Tiru seems to have anticipated management theory well in advance. Though, in his defense, he is not exactly propagating how to get work done from others in this couplet. He is more into telling you to be a genuinely caring person by plugging the incidental benefits.

It is tough, though, to avoid comparison with man management gurus and their teachings. Like how a good leader should learn what motivates their people and align their goals with the corporate goals, yada yada. And, invariably, as a coda to all the advice, they mention, 'It should come from a place of genuinely caring for their people' lest they be seen as teaching ways to con people into doing what they want. Even when THAT is exactly what they ARE teaching.

When the entire interaction comes from a space of genuinely caring for the people, the dos and donts of human relations tend to be irrelevant...except in ultra-litigious societies where what matters is only what a court of law will judge and not how the majority of employees themselves feel about at it. It is when the interest in others is only self-serving, and not genuine, that you need to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' of behavior.

In other words, if you can live up to Tiru's words in real life, you can junk the entire verbiage on how to be a good manager insofar as man-management is concerned. But if your interest is ersatz, THEN you better learn it all...for THEN you cannot just BE yourself, you need to ACT a part and, for that, you need to put in all the hard yards.

But, then, it is always seen as easier and/or cheaper to modify your behavior than to modify your character, no?

No EQ or SQ?

"You know what your problem is? When they were distributing EQ and SQ, you were on a bathroom break."

THAT is not my biggest problem. My biggest problem is that I have friends like this who come around telling me about the problems I have when I was quite content with life and not aware that I had ANY problems. Maybe THAT is a sign of low EQ and/or SQ - the fact that I end up with friends like this.

"Look at the way you behaved with Raj yesterday."

Now THIS is a guy who keeps talking without a smidgeon of encouragement from me and HE dares tell me that I am lacking in EQ/SQ. If he was looking for someone who lacked Emotional Quotient and Social Quotient, he need not have looked any further than his mirror.

"Every joke the poor chap told, you were trying to cap with a joke of your own."

Which poor...? Ah! Raj!

"So?"

"It did not cross your mind that laughing at a chap's joke makes him happier than trying to top his jokes?"

"As it probably did not cross yours that it was not Raj I was trying to make happy?"

"VERY wise of you. The other guys are not going to remember the whole episode for too long but Raj...even if he forgets the specifics, you probably are registered in his mind as an undesirable character. Way to win friends and influence people," he said applauding.

Yeah, yeah, you don't need to tell me that the applause was meant sarcastically. No matter what you think about my EQ/SQ, I'm not quite THAT stupid.

"AND the other day, with Mahesh."

Now what was this with Mahesh? Cannot be jokes since Mahesh could not recognize one if it was giftwrapped and labelled 'Joke' in size 72 font. In any case, he was an office colleague who we interacted with only in meetings.

"He came up with that great idea in yesterday's meeting. And you picked on the one or two minor flaws to elaborate on, without a word about the rest of his presentation."

Really? I mean, you are there in these meetings to get noticed for YOUR contributions. How was I going to get noticed for applauding along with everyone else?

"You probably thought you were showcasing how intelligent you are. You do the same thing when your own boss OR a senior colleague from another department presents something. You think they are going to be appreciative of how sharp you are."

Well, of course they would, no?

"All you are doing is getting a reputation as a naysayer. And that kiss of death - 'Not a Team man'."

Ye Gods! THAT is dangerous.

"So what do you think I must be doing?"

"Praise where praise is due. AND find something new to praise or a new way to praise if you want to stand out from the crowd."

"How is that going to help establish MY intelligence?"

The chap looked me over and I curled up inside. Here comes the usual 'WHAT intelligence?"

He must have been in a mellow mood. So...

"Well, what man wants to think that the person who is praising him is an idiot? After all, the worth of the praise depends on the worthiness of the person who is praising. So, naturally, you will be considered smart," he said with a meaningful look that completed the sentence with, "instead of the dumbf**k that you really are."

Ah! Well! Perhaps they DID distribute the EQ/SQ when I was in the bathroom after all!