Globalisation
didn’t limit itself with just trade and ideas, along with it, it has brought in
a tremendous change in how the world is interacting and growing. Internet,
computers and mobile phones have changed our lives in many ways, now we can with a click speak and even see
a person living thousands of kilometres across the world. The world has
never been so connected, that we are sometimes overwhelmed at making a choice
to buy any product, because the shopping malls are flooded with variety from
across the globe.
This
global phenomenon along with technological advancements brings in people of
different backgrounds together, both in professional and personal spheres of
life. We can see few of top global MNC’s
being run by Indian CEO’s and also we can see our local stores being run by
people from different geographical locations as well. Our society is
growing diverse in every aspect.
Having
to meet & deal with people of diverse race, religion, sex, culture,
traditions, attitudes, and values is much required of us. To deal with such a
diverse set of people may prove to be difficult at times. We often categorise
and stereotype people based on our past experiences and generalised
perceptions; what we forget is when we tend to stereotype a whole race or a population
based on some set of rules, we are definitely committing a blunder.
All
westerners are not promiscuous and neither all Indians have high morals. Not
all South Indians are good with English and not all North Indians are bad with
English. If someone prefers to wear some type of clothing, it might be just
their choice, not any ulterior motive. If a guy wears pink, it doesn’t
automatically make him gay. The old
lonely woman you make fun off, might have lost her only son, fighting for the
country. The blind guy whom you never have
time to help cross the road, might have lost his eye sight working for a
clinical research to develop new medicines.
A guy not holding the door for a lady doesn’t necessarily be
disrespectful. The fat girl you ridicule may be suffering from a medical
condition. Highly educated doesn’t always mean highly paid, uneducated doesn’t
always mean poor.
It’s
easy to be judgemental and draw premature conclusions based on external superficial
appearances or behaviour of someone; but we never try to understand why the
people are / behave the way they do? We never try to look in to what pain &
suffering they are trying to conceal. If we had even slightest of the ideas, we
ourselves would not behave the way we do.
Every
individual is unique in themselves, and everyone’s life is different, filled
with different experiences. The experiences and struggle which a person goes
through his/ her life shapes their behaviour & attitude. When we carefully
analyse people’s lives, we see that everyone has had or will have to face their
own share of difficulties and problems, each one of us are uniquely abled with
skills & abilities. This differentiates each one of us, then how can we generalise
people based on our biased perceptions, which clearly take into account only a
fraction of the concerned population.
In
such a case what can we do; should we just succumb to the actions /behaviours of
others and us being at the tolerating end? Definitely no, but what we can do is, we can make ours and
others life less miserable by being the one who seeks to understand others.
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