Let’s assume you are the kind of person who is unable to find someone of your age who matches your interests and tastes. You feel lonely and want some company. So, you decide to follow people of your age in every way. You sing, dance, draw or attend parties with people, thinking they will like you in turn and befriend you. Whether it’s really the thing YOU want to do doesn’t bother you because you want to combat the insecurity of loneliness. And in that pursuit, you lose your sense of who you are and what matters to you. You are blindly aping your peers to gain their friendship.

Sometimes, you dismiss your preference and adopt a new one. Take, for example, dressing; you shun your style and begin to dress like your peers for want of socialising. At first, you might feel happy being accepted or befriended, but it becomes an obsession over time. Before you go out every time, you will begin to feel the need to choose the outfit that’s acceptable to your peers or makes you look like ‘one with them’. Without realising it, you will slowly be eroding your identity.

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All of us commit mistakes knowingly or unknowingly due to reasons such as ignorance, peer pressure, etc. But we remember that if we said or did something wrong as kids or teens, we were either ridiculed or punished. Sometimes, we were also bribed to act right in return for things we loved. But did it really teach us a lesson? Not at all!

Behaviour corrected with punishments, ridicule or even bribery is a negative reinforcement. Kids will avoid doing wrong only to save themselves from the punishment or for favourable gain. Once the reinforcement is removed, the behaviour might be resumed. Instead, if we morally reason out with the wrong by focusing on triggers that caused the action, rationalize to children how such actions can impact their personality and the wider society and advise them to stay on the right path irrespective of whether they knowingly or unknowingly committed the mistake, we can make them understand why they shouldn’t commit the mistake to make it non-repetitive for the future and secure their welfare.

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Every person is different by birth. Some people are good at academics, some at music, some are good at dance, and some people pick up languages faster, while others may be skilled in art. Among these, the non-academic skills constitute ‘extracurricular’ or relate to activities pursued outside the academic curriculum. They are imparted through after-school classes by private tutors or included as part of the curriculum in some schools and tremendously aid in the development of children from childhood to adulthood.

Parents usually involve kids in a number of extra-curricular activities at a young age. This is because, the capacity to grasp even the subtle nuances of the art or sport is far greater at that age. With cognitive abilities developing as they age, learning a different art or sport or language will only aid in accelerating the development. Also, academic commitments and other responsibilities are low when kids are young. So, with the abundant time they have, they can master the trade with perfection. And since they have absolutely no pressure to perform, kids will be able to pick up skills under stress-free circumstances.

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Our lives are a collection of all the little memorable day-to-day moments and big events that create our history from birth to death. Many a time, they are savoured and forgotten. Sometimes they occur as sudden flashes in our present thoughts. Rarely are they treasured in tangible forms as memories for a lifetime. Read on to know how to convert these precious seconds into indelible memories that embrace us till we leave a lasting legacy!

Preserve!

Indulging in Diary Entries on a regular basis (usually daily or weekly) is one way for preserving beautiful moments by recording your experiences through words or cartoons or animations or a combo of any two of these soaked in emotions. In short, they are a mini autobiography of our lives!

Family or Individual Scrap Books are another interesting medium through which significant events such as family gatherings, festivals, birth, etc., are recorded. Laced with vivid pictures of people and places described by lucid phrases, they are a collection of memories of mostly positive happenings unlike diary entries which are a mixed lot and they sure hold, the “Beauty of our Past”!

Our lives are filled with smaller stories which when pieced together, form a big story. Each of us has a unique story to tell. So why not then record our stories through an interesting tale? Through role play and dramatization, Storytelling can preserve our most cherished moments, specially with technology. Narrating a cherished or sad event into a story helps us relive the memory again and digital recordings of chronological sequence of such events form a good movie that spans across time!

Positive reinforcement

Hidden in pages or locked in stories, memories are unconsciously reinforced time and again when we have leisure conversations with acquaintances, friends, or relatives. Most of the time, we discuss the happy memories and keep the sad ones to ourselves. However, explaining how we evolved into better humans from bitter memories can also reinforce more positivity into our lives, thus enhancing our sense of well-being.

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In life, we often have to seek help from one another to meet a variety of our needs. With seeking help, comes also gratitude to the person who helped us. The giver isn’t aware whether the help given enabled the recipient to complete the task successfully or not. This is where the concept of Cycle of Gratitude comes in.

Gratitude is a basic virtue taught to us by our parents and in our value education classes. Thankfulness is the lesson of saying “Thank you” to someone who helped us in time of need. It feels gratifying to receive the same from someone whom we have helped. Imagine if the person whom we helped finished his task and called us to say: “How successfully I’ve completed the job with your help” or simply what went right or wrong in the task he just finished with your help. Doesn’t it feel great? Of course, it does! The gratitude that emanates from the person you helped is much more intense and you now value yourself a little more.

Saying thanks, expressing how the help enabled you in moving an inch closer to your goal shows that you truly value the help beyond the initial trust you had in it. And when you value the help, you value the person too, completing the cycle of gratitude. When you complete the cycle of gratitude, you incite a feeling of accomplishment in the person who has helped you, thus magnifying also your gratefulness.

What if a help enabled you to solve just a small part of the task? Does that mean the help is too insignificant to be valued and that a mere “thank you” at the time of help suffices? The help, however small it may have been, has enabled you to complete the task without a glitch. Without that, your work would still be unfinished with minor loopholes.

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People may not always remember what you told them, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There is always a difference between what you say and how you say something. Even if what you want to say is legit, the way in which you communicate it can alter the way it will be perceived.

Think of words. When said with power, they create an indelible impact in people’s minds. Often times, it’s not instances of celebratory appeal that reveal the power of words. It’s usually those moments when you want to disagree, disapprove of something or someone’s behaviour, reprimand and the list is endless. Frequently, you are always mistaken during such moments not because of what you said, but how you said it. Your intentions were not wrong, but the manner in which you said it made the receiver feel as though he or she was being ridiculed. The result — your message was received with aversion or you came across as someone seeking to protect his or her own interests. Even if your intentions were genuine, your way of communication didn’t reflect it.

Over the years, I have noticed it’s not only words that can clearly differentiate how we say from what we intend to. Our voice tonality, expressions and gestures too can create a wide gap between the “what” and the “how” and we surely have the means to correct it. Here are a few ways how our messages in such situations can be received sportively without altering the crux of what we intended to mean through them.

Rephrase!

Many a time, a change in words can spare you your reputation. My dad used to famously quote: “Instead of referring to someone as a fool, you could always tell them to be a little more intelligent”. Not only would such words elicit respect from the receiver for you, but inspire him/her to commit to a change. Most people use this way of communication when they want to point out someone’s flaws or are disapproving of someone’s behaviour, undoubtedly with the expectation that it will be received constructively.

It’s not always that you might have to change your usage of words to not sound hurting or demeaning a person’s character. Saying whatever it is that you are saying in a soft and gentle tone will make them worthy of creating a long-lasting impact.

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