Lessons in Leadership VII – Relations and Perfection

April 27th, 2009 > Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

In this article I will discuss two matters; the question of who we are and the relation we create between ourselves and others. Starting with the question of which we really are it sounded interesting for me to sit and have an honest discussion with myself about the truth of who I am and the things which I believe in.

How many times we think with ourselves about those things which create our personality? Most of those things such as religion, culture, attitude, beliefs, ideas, and many other things are given to us since our childhood by those who raise us up or the people who we live with in our communities. The first rule which the community tries to teach us is about the importance of considering certain things which we are taught as forbidden to be discussed. Some for example consider any kind of discussion about religion or the way we believe in it not a healthy thing to do. Questions about God and other sensitive cases are not encouraged especially if the question looks suspicious. However, this does not work well in this age of history.

It seems that although these questions are considered bad for religion, they sometimes cause people to become closer to their religious belief and the creator. In other words, If you are a true believer of your current religion and you never let yourself know more about other religions, you will keep the doubt inside you but once you allow yourself to be open and know more about other people and their religious and non religious beliefs you will respect them more and you will become more understanding of what you believe in. This is not only about religion but all the other differences in culture and ideologies between people.

To ask yourself about the reality of who you are does not mean that you will have to replace what you already got from your culture and background. I personally believe that everyone can add a new thing to what he or she already learned from society. In order to accomplish and feel that you achieved something you must not be satisfied with what you have been learned without trying to add your taste and color to it. In order to gain this power you must first of all learn from others then decide to add what is good for you and those who are around you.

Relations with others are affected by this action since your way of seeing others will affect your relations with them. Once you will be ready to respect the other view, your relation will be stronger and will bring you more benefit from the other side. Remember that humans try to protect themselves from each other by filling their heads with negative ideas about the other side. Once a discussion or a conflict starts between them, they act upon the ideas which they created alone about the other side. In other words imagine yourself in an argument about a specific issue and the other side who is arguing with you starts by accusing you of neglecting his or her opinion. Their whole claim is built on this point and therefore once you state that it is important for you to listen to their opinion and consider it, there will be no claim left.

However, another interesting point about relations is related to the way we describe people we have relations with; we have best friends, friends, special friends, business friends, hello friends, close friends, fun friends, to argue with friend, life partners, and people who we love and want to stay with for the rest of our lives.

The way we describe people and categorize them into these expressions depends on the way we meet them and the nature of our relation and communication with them. We meet someone and we immediately feel that this is someone who we definitely want as a close friend for example. In other occasions we meet other people and we judge them depending on the first impression we get from them. The question is whether this first impression we get is enough and good to decide who we want as a friend or not. Sometimes we feel that something we cannot control pushes us to like someone and we love this feeling. This affects the way we see this person and the feeling we hold for him or her.

However, the most important point in the whole idea of feelings and relations with others is to never let one relation affect all the other relations you have with people around you. If you take one relation and make it become an example of the perfect relation which you want you will never succeed in exploring more new relations and people. There is noting called the perfect or example relation because people differ with each other and therefore whenever you meet someone new you will definitely have to create a new way of looking at him or her. By doing this you will gain more friends than enemies and you will become someone who people will definitely want as a friend.

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