Bad habits – one can easily avoid

 

After the General elections 2014, I called one of my acquaintances to hear his prediction about the poll results. While talking I noticed that he was more interested in telling me about his conversation with Ms. Nirmala Seetharaman (the Present Union Minister) and MLA Suresh Kumar regarding results. I could easily make out his intentions. He was emphasizing the point that he is well connected with top notch politicians. (Unfortunately, out of the 10 minutes talk, he didn’t speak anything about results!)

 

You would have observed when you converse with some people, that they often make reference to their meeting with the chairman of Xyz Company, the vice president of a reputed club, a famous advocate in the city, etc. If you really see, such references may not have any relevance to the conversation. This is another habit of making unnecessary references to irrelevant occasions.

 

These things happen at home. When you visit someone’s house, the hosts for some unknown reason bring in the names of prominent people. ‘You like this dish? You know what happened last week? Ms. Pooja Gandhi came with my daughter, we prepared the same dish and she liked it so much’. Even if you try to avoid the obvious question – “oh, Pooja is known to you, is it?” they will still continue, “Pooja is a very good friend of my daughter. They know each other over 5 years and are very close friends. ……etc….  (it is not about the dish; it is about Pooja’s connection with the family)

 

Some people expect their importance to be noted at every given opportunity. For example, some people will ask unnecessary questions after or during the seminar in an open session. Just to show that they can also ask questions. Most of the time, such questions will only prolong the seminar. Atleast if the question has some substance, it is acceptable, but mostly they are irrelevant.

 

Not just that, I have seen people posing very complicated questions to the speaker to show that they are extraordinarily intelligent and are a different breed altogether. (Neither the speaker nor the audience can understand the question and the speaker for the sake of answering will give a vague reply)

 

Like the audience that tries to show off, even the speaker also draws the names of places and people out of nowhere.

 

Last month I attended a seminar conducted by a bank on a topic of general importance. This was open to all and it was conducted in one of the hotels in Bangalore. The speaker was mentioning that ‘When he was in London last week, he read in the newspaper …. (focus is on London not on the topic)

 

While he continued the talk, he was mentioning about his discussion with RBI deputy governor about inflation. (The focus is on discussion with RBI deputy governor not on inflation). So I was curious about inflation and my curiosity was left unsatisfied, because whatever he was mentioning was from that day’s newspaper!

 

I can quote some more instances like this; for example; when you visit some one’s home, they somehow bring in the topic such as “When I visited Washington last time, my daughter insisted to buy this tumbler; so even though we had excess baggage, you know, we got it from there’ (after all a small tumbler, mostly available in 4th Block, Jayanagar. Obviously, you know, it is not about tumbler, it is about their visit to Washington)

 

Friends; let us not be so artificial and pretentious in life, let’s not show off this way, we are living for ourselves. Simple and humble approach will lead to a happy living all around.  

 

Thought for the day

 

Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of

 

 

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About B E Kumar Prasad

B E Kumar Prasad
He is a Practicing Chartered Accountant in Bengaluru, India. He has 28+ years of experience in income tax, business setup, and NRI matters. He is also an Insolvency Professional, Registered Valuer (F&SA) and Social Auditor.Prasad welcomes your comments and questions. Please email him at simplifiedlaws20@gmail.com

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Vighneshwar Bhat
Vighneshwar Bhat
2024 years ago

very nice

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