The "I" in me

I guess I can create my first two posts here with something which I had written long ago. So it is easry for me just to copy paste here.

Can we remove the “I” in ourselves when dealing with other people? I wonder! We have grown to accept, some of us, consciously and some of us unconsciously, that this “I” is an inherent part of our selves. The conscious ones think that without this “I” in their conscious state of mind, they are naught, that all normal self respecting human beings should have this “I” prominent and visible in all their dealings as this is what separates them from other human beings. The unconscious ones don’t even know that this “I” exist in their behaviour as it has got embedded so deeply over the years by letting it take control of them, that it has become hidden from their knowledge.

This is a very great malady affecting a majority of people around us and specially in organisations where we work. This is a malady, which knows no class difference and affects all of us equally, be it an ED/ V.P. or be it a representative in the collectives. That is why you will find that such people resent the people below them or people who ask questions or who share information as the latter are looked at as intruders in the former’s glass palaces, which they have carefully built and nurtured to protect their fragile existence, that even a hint of askance towards these people tend to shatter the glass façade. Questions asked seem to challenge their authority. Information shared seems to reduce their right to be privy to such information.

There are exceptions, I agree, but any organisation would have been a better place to work in if all of us forgot this “I” inside us for the time we are here and remember that we are all working for the same goal and nobody is superior to anybody except in knowledge, maybe, and age and that’s all about it I guess. If we can remember that then we can probably keep the ego inside us in the background and never forget that one day when the chair is not there, it is the human being that we will all be remembered for, barring of course, for the eccentricities and harm or good that we do here as long as we are in service.

It is due to these misplaced egos of these people that cases like somebody feeling that his authority has been demeaned in some work when a junior takes some initiative or someone feels that he should have some peon to bring his water to his table or someone feels that he has the right to walk through some room just because he is senior even though a meeting is going on there. I say to this type of people that please pause for a moment and think. Think whether what your egos make you do are justified? Do you feel angry to find a locked door because your ego is hurt seeing that you don’t have access to something which your bloated ego makes you feel you should have or do you really think you should walk through that door? Do you feel that when a junior has taken the initiative he has done to make you appear silly or whether by rebuking him for some good job done will make you appear sillier? Please ask yourself when a junior comes with a suggestion is he trying to tell you that you are a fool because you couldn’t think of it or is he just trying to do his duty and help you do yours? Well this is just an example of hundreds of such cases, which may be happening to most of us here. If only this ego did not blind us, maybe we could have all been better people to work with.

Today I offered my seat to someone who wanted to use the mail. It surprised the person. And it surprised me in turn. It never occurred to me that if I offer my seat to someone I am losing any authority or I will not remain who I am. It is true that sitting in someone’s seat/ chair can be taken to extremes and office decorum has to be there. After all I am not supposed to sit in a senior person’s chair just like that. But I am sure you all understand what I mean. I am confident that what I am I will always remain even if I offer my chair to someone because what I am is within me and nothing can take it away from me.

But then, all said and done, who knows? Even I may be having this “I” in me when I feel proud to say that I don’t have it, and feel proud to say that I can offer my chair to anyone without any fear. This seems to show that it is me taking pride in myself and hence probably propagating the inherent “I” that is inside in all of us to the forefront of my sub-consciousness and then consciousness. Maybe we all will continue to live with this “I” inside us and it will forever be a battle to keep it under control. The better human is one that can win all the battles.

The "I" that is in us are of two forms, one is the "I" as we are, as individuals, and the other is the "I" which comes to us from our positions. It is the "I" which comes to people by their positions that create zeros out of them. It happens because they are actually without the other "I" -- their own "I"s (The first one) and so hide behind the "I" that they think comes from their positions and when they lose their positions they are totally lost because without their positions they are Zeros!! Unfortunately such people are around us all the time. In any organisation of the world, anywhere in the world.