Morality

The lie that stayed…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

The room was dark, with only a faint light from the outside street lamp filtering in. Kirit was lying on the bed, not able to sleep.

For a 9-year old, that is unusual. It was certainly for him. He was used to falling asleep as soon as he was tucked into the bed.

He was trying very hard to get to sleep. Shutting his eyes off with his hands, sometimes blocking his ears with the help of the pillow and the blanket. But sleep alluded him.

The reason for this rather disturbing experience for Kirit was what had happened in the day earlier.

He was with his family, visiting some family friends. A usual catch up, except that this was the same people they had been going on vacations with too. Close friends of his dad and mom, he had expected them to be there for every trip.

This time though, as they were getting ready to leave their house, his mother told him not to talk about the summer holidays. When he looked quizzed, she mentioned that for a change, they had planned a trip only for the three of them this time.

And she wanted him not to bring up a topic which may end up in an unpleasant conversation. Kirit was flummoxed. He didn’t know what to do.

Naturally, he raised a pertinent question. What should he say if they ask him first. To this, his dad had replied that he can say they hadn’t planned yet.

Kirit was more confused now. He sensed this will be a lie, but his own parents were asking him to utter it. On the way, he tried to get some more discussion going, but his parents shut him off, saying the more he talks about it before, the difficult it will be for him to do what was being suggested.

It was of course difficult. Kirit had always believed in being a honest kid. He knew some kids his age were used to lying or resorted to it occasionally. He was proud he hadn’t done so. Until now.

He closed his eyes and prayed that the situation may never occur. God was perhaps not in a mood to listen though!

As soon as they got off and started playing, his friends Ahan and Deb asked him what were his holiday plans. They wanted to plan together. He looked sheepishly at his mom, who nudged him with her eyes.

Not too confidently, Kirit uttered the lie. He further asked them to clarify with his parents. He couldn’t take it anymore when his parents supported his version and lied too. Running to the bathroom, he closed the door and sobbed for a while.

That entire day, he was awkward. He expected someone to catch their lie. It was what he had learned in school. But by evening, when no one reacted adversely and feigned indifference, he realised that the lie had passed muster.

On the way back home, Kirit was quiet. He was reflecting on the situation and the behaviour. He had learnt something important today.

A lie well told and corroborated with can seem like a truth. And it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be.

His conscience was still in conflict though. He kept on hearing his inner voice asking if he had done the right thing.

At first he tried ignoring it and carried on with his bed time routine. But when the question didn’t go away for a while, he firmly told his mind that since there was no fallout of the lie, it was ok.

Now in his bed, trying to get sleep, his mind had flipped and was constantly humming with ideas of where he may be able to lie and get away. His thoughts were racing at how he could use it smartly at school and home.

That was the reason for the struggle that night. The lie he had uttered in the day, had stayed with him in the night.

And the memory and change in behaviour for possibly all his life…

Moral Compasses

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

What is it? Why do we need one? How do I explain this simply?

This question had been riling me for a while. Not because I didn’t know the explanation. But because that explanation was abstract or complex, not easily describable.

Then, this week something happened which helped me decipher the explanation!

As is the wont, our daughter made a mistake. A behavioral mistake. One that wasn’t agreeable to me or my wife. And we set out to make it right.

We knew we had to nip that behavior in the bud and at the same time help our daughter realize how she needs to change it.

This wouldn’t have been possible by positing as the usual dad, which I am often guilty of. It rather needed me to wear a different hat and check in my biases, inhibitions, and suggestions at the door. I chose to have a heart to heart with her.

Sitting down, we had a long conversation. About what had led her to behave like she did. How had it not been obvious to her that it wasn’t right. And what was her observation post her behavior. As well as of those around her.

I gave her the room to speak her mind and tell me what she was thinking before and after. And how did she perceive it.

As we dived in, I realized that I needed to give her a tool which could help her in similar situations going forward. So, I explained to her the code that I follow. “Don’t do something that you cannot tell about to everyone”.

She took my advice and has course corrected, apologizing to a couple of friends at the rough end of the behavior. As well as making peace with herself that although she slipped some, we caught on to her and she is back to her usual self.

But as I thought about it, I realized the simplicity with which I had explained a very important concept to her. That of morality and how to judge it!

For what is morality? How we ought to see ourselves or how we see others? How we ought to do ourselves or how we do to others? They are both intertwined I believe, in a circular motion.

Morality moves in tandem with who we are, and what we do. Whatever we choose, our morals become that. And that compass continues to guide us in the direction that we had already chosen…

The downward spiral

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

As usual, over the weekend I tried to catch up with newsletters and articles to make sense of the world over the past week or so. Over the past few weeks, I had been following the narrative of things going wrong in business, and as I read some of those articles, that gnawing feeling came back – something’s not right with how things are in the business world.

Over the past few months, there has been constant reporting and scrutiny of how big tech companies, which at one point of time were hailed as superlative, are now being called out for wrongdoings. It’s been the same with startups too. And with companies in other established industries.

Well, one of the reasons for this level of outrage could be the disconcerting factor of how the current situation has resulted in small companies and businesses folding up, traditional setups destroyed, while tech-led businesses and large corporations have flourished.

Another could be the fact that after years of hoping that the online economy would open up channels of equality and grounds of fair play, we have realised that it is after all still the same old place, with people having better access to resources winning over those with less. And hence the backlash.

Or it could be just the fact that people have finally woken up and realised that all is not right with the world that we live in and they need to call out and correct the wrongdoings.

Whatever it may be, what I have realised is that without a doubt, there has been a constant churning for the worse. Companies that began with a heart of pure gold (or so they claimed), have compromised on their values. Leaders who espoused equality and fairness, have squandered the opportunity to abide by what they said initially. And startups which came into being to solve a problem and be different than the others, have disintegrated into being a newer version of those ‘others’.

In my mind, it all boils down to one aspect – it’s the human(s) leading the charge who have led this downwards spiral. The founders, the leaders, the executives, people who were tasked with leading the new wave and rising above others, haven’t been able to fulfil the potential that was expected or promised.

Having built a business myself, I know it’s not easy to be in those shoes. When one is in the saddle, every small bump has to be negotiated. Hurdles at almost every step have to be crossed. More so, if you are a startup or a company out to prove yourself in a new market. And there’s constant pressure. From your known ones, people who have invested in you or the company, from the customers et al.

And while your intention is to navigate all of these in the most ideal way possible, there are times when you fall down. When you have to take a detour to avoid a wide ditch. In times like those, you have to decide. Decide to do the right thing for everyone, without knowing what’s the correct answer. Taking a leap of faith sometimes.

As long as your heart is in the correct place, things would turn out to be fine. It’s when you allow those moments to move you into a different zone, one which you aren’t comfortable with, that things go wrong.

When investors advise you to adopt a different strategy contrary to what you wanted to do, for the sake of the market. Or competitors demand you to be more aggressive, forcing you to adopt practices not consistent with your values. That’s when the fault-lines appear and if not taken control over, lead to a crack, large enough to cause a chasm.

The trouble is, in a lot of the successful cases recently, these chasms have led to superior growth, opened up new vistas for the business, and led to the belief that the decision taken in those trying times was right. And as nothing succeeds like success, the new thought becomes the de-facto.

And then the downward spiral begins. Feeling reassured by the success and by the belief that things are fine, the chasm grows. Practices and policies get diluted. Things begin to change for the worse. Chasing numbers or growth or glory, decisions are taken that move away the company significantly from where it wanted to be, at the start. And that’s why the current backlash.

It’s not that the world is replete with these examples. There have been quite a few cases where the leaders have refused to budge and succeeded despite odds stacked against the right way of doing things. But they are far and few in between.

Perhaps, it is time for us to think about our responsibility individually and as we grow up in life and work, to resolve to do the right thing whenever we are leading the charge. Even if it means that we will take time to succeed. Or that we have to call out and correct the wrong-doing.

Because, the downward spiral isn’t something worth living for in the long run!