As I was looking through Andrew Harvey’s book, “Teachings Of Rumi,” I found this wonderful story Rumi wrote in his Mathnawi. To me it explains how we establish beliefs, by seeing only a part of reality. It shows the differences we see, looking at the same thing. It describes how we can learn to trust our inner feelings by focusing on them, rather than just seeing things externally. It shows us that we are capable of imaging anything, in the face of the unknown, and it becomes real to us. If you touched your spirit in the dark, what would it feel like to you? OK, how about when you shine a light on it?

” Some Indians took an elephant into a dark house to exhibit it. People entered the house to try and find out what it was like, but since it was too dark for them to see anything clearly, they each had to feel the elephant with their hands. One person put his hand on the trunk and said, “This animal is like a water pipe!” The hand of another brushed its ear; it seemed to him like a fan. Another seized its leg and declared, “The form of the elephant is like a pillar!” Another put his hand on his back and proclaimed, “The elephant is like a throne!” Each time anyone heard a description of the elephant, he would understand it through the particular part he had touched. According to whichever section of the animal they had encountered, people’s affirmations differed. If each of them had held out a candle in the dark, all differences between what they said would have vanished. The eye of outward sense is only like the palm of a hand; how can you discover an elephant in its totality with just a palm? The eye of the sea is one thing, the foam another; leave the foam aside, and see with the eye of the sea.”

Hal Manogue is a poet and author of Short Sleeves A Book For Friends. Insightful thoughts for the 21st century. Hal’s 2006 collection and 2007 collection are available in bookstores and online. Visit Hal’s website: shortsleeves.net shortsleeves.net or blog: halmanogue.blogspot.com/ halmanogue.blogspot.com/ for more information about his work and life. Download a copy of the new E-Book,”Unite To Write” a collection of articles written by writers around the globe, that will inspire and fill you with useful information. It’s value is priceless. It’s Hal’s gift to you.

Introduction

Appreciation, awards, recognition, respect and love, everybody needs these things in life. They are the heart, soul and life of Human Beings. Is there anybody among the readers, who can say with confidence that these things are materialistic and they can survive and live without these things? We need appreciation, we need respect and we have seen that some, in fact, many people can go to any extent to get noticed; to get appreciated and get respected. Hosting parties and functions is one such common and mostly used tactic to show-off to people, get noticed and appreciated.

Ladies are known to use all the possible ways, tricks and tantrums to get noticed, particularly then when they buy new dresses and jewelry, to make sure that they get noticed and appreciated. There are many stories revolving around various villages which show such desperation among females and one such story talks about a lady who put her house on fire to show her diamond ring to people.

It is not that males don’t need attention and they don’t do such tantrums or dramas. When they buy new bike, new car, new house, even new shirt…they make sure that people notice them and appreciate them.

Same is true for respect. Most of the time and at most of the places, it is forced respect. Armed forces and companies of Old Economy are examples of such “Forced Respects”. Thanks to our urge to copy the western culture and New Economy Companies that now people can address their seniors by their first name.

I am not writing this write-up to discuss as what people do in their personal life, if their behavior is good and acceptable or not. Neither, I am trying to compare males and females, who seek more attention. I am very much focused and will be discussing about such things at workplaces and the role of HR.

Importance of Appreciation and Respect

Appreciation is related to motivation. We all know that few words of appreciation can go a long way to motivate a person. Similarly, respect is associated with self-pride, more knowledge and experience in company, family and team. But, is it necessary to ask people to appreciate you and respect you? Do you think that the respect or appreciation that you will be getting by asking for it will be true and genuine? Why not earn your respect, deserve appreciation and face the truth? Let your work; let your personality and not your position earn the respect for you. That reminds me one of the dialogues from one of famous Hindi Movie, (Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Gam), “Paisa to har koi kama leta hai; izzat kamana har kissi ke bas ki baat nahi” (Anybody can earn money but earning respect is that much difficult).

I have seen people at work-places, blunt and straight forward enough to ask for appreciation. They ask their clients, colleagues and subordinates to write appreciatory mails to their bosses and seniors. Other, who are a bit intelligent and shy, they keep on reminding you about the good things that they have done; about their achievements; about the manner in which they have helped you, till the time you acknowledge it and appreciate it.

Respect

Respect can be classified into two – Respect for the position and for the person. I can have high respect for someone who is younger to me and have achieved a lot and is successful in his life; a person with high integrity and credibility. I might not respect a very senior or elder person for his arrogance, ignorance and ego.

Suppose, there is a person who is a CEO of the company and he has been positioned on that post just for the fact that his father owes the company. He don’t know much about the business, have no leadership skills, unlike is father, he is not a visionary; I don’t think that his “employees” will be able to give him the actual respect. They might be respecting the position but not the person.

Ours is a society, wherein we have been taught to respect the elders for their experience and age.

Doesn’t matter if their experience is worth to learn from or they have just piled up the years of experience.

Doesn’t matter if their knowledge is still relevant or has become obsolete.

Doesn’t matter if they have ego and arrogance and they have stopped learning…way back.

In armed forces, an experienced solider, who have 30 years of experience and have faced two wars is expected to respect and obey his senior but young officer who is fighting the first war and is not even aware of border areas.

Respect, should come from the bottom of your heart and should not be just a gesture or a word in the mouth.

Appreciation

In Bhagwat Gita (One of the most sublime of world scriptures), it says, “Karam Kiye Ja Phal ki eecha mat kar aie insaan; jeeisa karam karega weisa phal deega Bhagwaan” (Work is worship. Do your work sincerely and don’t bother about the rewards). We all know that proper appreciation motivates a person but choice of appreciation is also important. Let me explain. During the year, you have been assigned 12 assignments and you did extremely well in each of the assignment. You exceeded the expectations and in the process, also benchmarked your own performance. You set the example for others to emulate.

Your boss appreciated you, after the completion of each assignment by sending you appreciatory mails, marking copies to all the team members. He also announced some ad hoc bonus for you.

Or, you want to get loads of appreciation at the time of appraisal for your perseverance, along with exponentially high increment, with promotion; best employee award (mentioning about your importance and achievements in front of all the employees) with a holiday package. Which one of these will keep you motivated for a long duration?

In appreciation, for it to have longevity and effectiveness, time of appreciation; manner of appreciation; platform of appreciation and the person who is appreciating you are equally important.

You have done a great job; you are happy about your work; you are feeling satisfied…its good but might be your work is not “exceptional” to get any appreciation; might be it is not as per the set guidelines; might be you took lots of time or your boss need to give you many inputs to help you…in such scenarios you won’t get any appreciation.

You have achieved something big; you are on seven sky; you are delighted; you want to share your achievements with others…its OK. Go ahead. But can you ask people to accept your achievement and appreciate you for that. I don’t think so. For example, I appeared on TV, covered by some channel for some good things that I did in my life or career. I am thrilled. In the interview, I was sitting next to Karan Thaper. So, what? I should not expect others to appreciate my achievements or recognition. I should not “ask” them to acknowledge and appreciate me. Should I?

Role of HR

HR people are expected to be generous with their appreciation, while appreciating others work, particularly the youngsters and fresher. In the case of fresher and employees of other departments, the chain should be like…

Acknowledge every effort

Appreciate the result or completion of the task

Celebrate the exceptional achievement

In case of HR Professionals and other seniors the chain should be like…

Acknowledge the result or completion of the task.

Appreciate the exceptional achievement

and celebrate, when such exceptional performances are repeated again and again over a period of time.

Regarding respect, in companies and corporate…it is advisable to go by the culture and value system of the company but in civil life you can choose as whom you like to respect to whom you don’t want to respect.

Conclusion

Asking for appreciation or forced respect reduces your status. You become like a beggar on the bank of Ganga at Sangam in Uttar Pradesh, who beg for money, if you don’t give, he start following you and irritate you and if you still don’t give, and then they pronounce some ill-wish for you. So, deserve your appreciation and earn your respect.

These are some of the thoughts and views that I thought of sharing with you. You may agree or disagree. Choice is still yours whether you like to ask or earn.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback

Regards

Sanjeev Himachali
Blog:

Have you come to realize the true value of time from past time management programs you’ve tried? Simply speaking time is more valuable than money because it’s a non-replenishable resource. The great thing is that time is available to everyone, and anyone can have more free time.

To get started with some good time management habits schedule at least one thing each week that is really important and rewarding to you. Emphasize important and rewarding to you. Don’t think about or worry about the things you must do or should do here. If you wanted to purchase a new home and you had zero dollars for a down payment you understand the concept in the financial arena that you have to pay yourself first, or set aside even a small amount of money each week until you reach your target. The same concept works here. If you want to be time rich you have to start by giving yourself a little bit of just plain old free time to do what you want now, or you never will and you’ll never be time rich.

The next step is a common time management practice. Fill in all the must do’s for the week in your calendar. But only fill in things that are absolute requirements, not things that you just think are absolute requirements. For example, you have to go to work or you’ll be cash poor, but you only think you have to do some of the chores you have on your calendar for the week. If there aren’t immediate negative consequences for not doing something it isn’t really a must to.

Don’t forget the hidden time sappers, this is an often overlooked item in your time management training. It takes time to drive to and from work. It takes time to get ready for work. Don’t forget to allocate time in your scheduling to allow for all these little time sappers that seem to slip through the cracks of accountability, and cause all sorts of problems with your scheduling.

Now evaluate everything that didn’t fit in. When you start planning based on how you will spend your time rather how you are spending your time, you quickly realize that you can’t possibly fit everything in. That means if you want to implement an effective coachingmegaagents.com/TimeManagementArticle.php time management program that some things are going to have to: get dumped, get delegated, or get moved to a later time. Just evaluate each remaining thing with the objective of first seeing if you can dump it and never do it, be ruthless here. Then identify what someone else can do and get them doing it. Finally, only focus on the things that must be done this week and move other things to a later more appropriate time.

Time management is a battle you can win. As you start to reward yourself by allocating free time for yourself first your incentive to guard your time against the things that are time sappers strengthens. It gets easier to say no to those things because you just don’t have time for them. As you get more ruthless in your dumping and delegating, and more committed to paying yourself in time first you develop the skills and habits you need to be time rich.

Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this coachingmegaagents.com/TimeManagement.php Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are.

When you absolutely must have measurable results to consistently and predictably get where you want to go for Superior Success…visit coachingmegaagents.com/ CoachingMegaAgents to start on your journey for superior success.

When you are living your life with an anxiety disorder, you can feel very alone. The truth is that to really get over your anxiety as best as you can, you need to have support all around you. It may be difficult for your family or friends to understand your behavior, which may often be irrational. However, they will need to learn to help you through your difficult times. They should do this because they care about you, even if it may annoy them to do so.

To help your friends and family understand what you are going through, you may want to bring them a brochure or book they can read through. Simply reading through these materials might help them see why you act the way you do. There are even books specifically for the family of those with anxiety that can help them know what to do and how to react.

If you cannot make your friends and family understand and support you, then don’t feel bad. There are other ways to find support for your anxiety. For instance, you can find support groups. If you would rather not attend a support group in person, you can find them online. Online support groups are great for people with anxiety, because they are truly anonymous in most aspects. Seek out groups that you feel would help you and give them a try.

When you find the support you need, you will find that you can deal with your anxiety better when you have people surrounding you that are helping you too!

Jeanette Pollock is a freelance author and website owner of anxietydomain.com anxietydomain.com. Visit Jeanette’s site to learn more about anxietydomain.com/2006/08/11/finding-support-for-anxiety/ how to find anxiety support.