Mirroring

This article has been due for a while. These days I have been busy beyond compare, with my work and academics. But, if you have to write something, you will, whatever be the case. With the same spirit I’m writing this article, amidst of a busy week.

Quite often than not, you see people neglecting others, but get offended when others start neglecting them. Everyone wants to be loved, cared and treated well. But how many people really are willing to show the same attitude towards others? Here’s a short story I had read as 10 years old, which throws some light on this subject matter. Guess these adages are more effective at that age and as we grow up, we tend to forget their importance and move on.

Once, a little boy named John went alone to woods. He hardly saw anyone there. This probably got him annoyed and he started uttering swear words, aloud. Quite to his astonishment, someone used the same swear words back at him. He felt terrible about being in the woods and returned home. He described his experience to his mom. His mom realized what went on in the woods and asked John to go back to the same woods and this time instead of swear words, asked him to try using some pleasant words. Little ones often follow what is taught to them blindly and the next day as expected he went to woods and started giving complements to the woods. In return, he heard the same complements back. John went back all happy this time and hugged his mother. His mother said, “This is how it works in life. When you use kind words at others, they will use kind words at you. When you do some good deeds to people, people will do some good to you. It’s simple, when you stand in front of mirror and make a frown face, obviously your reflection will not be smiling”

Probably, little John understood this dynamics of life, but alas, we grownups seem to have forgotten it. It will be only fair to expect others to behave in the same way, the way in which we behave with them. That’s life. The principle of echoing and mirroring may have got a lot to do with science, but this principle holds good in our day to day life as well.