HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE AND LOSE FRIENDS

 




“A man convinced against his will

is of the same opinion, still.”

Dale Carnegie in ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’

 

I was born into a Roman Catholic family. By virtue of it, I have been following certain deity and saints, and practicing certain customs, eating and dressing habits. Similarly, over time, I have leaned towards certain political ideology and followed certain leaders.  But, which God I worship or which political leader I support, I think, I should keep it private, unless I have an aggressive evangelistic or political agenda. I have none… I wish to have none. But, let me make it clear: To follow a certain religious or political ideology is my basic human-right. At the same time, I believe, that it’s my basic human-duty to respect others’ basic human-rights…

To me, that’s being civilized… Live and let live.

Trouble starts, when I try to demean ‘publicly’ what others believe in and practice. That’s like stirring up the hornet’s nest… Dare I do that, I should have the daring to be attacked by the angry bees!

We see this drama almost every day on social media – be it FB, Instagram, Twitter or  WhatsApp groups. I feel sorry for – in fact angry about -  some of my friends when they quite regularly post demeaning or hateful things about others’ religions and deities or political leaders and ideologies. These friends of mine are ordinary folks like you and me, who, as I said, have no aggressive missions to convert people to their faiths or ideologies. Like you and me, these folks have to ‘eat by the sweat of their brows’ – and not on any religious or political patronage. They know it… They know, that, at the end of the day, we all have to co-exist in peace and harmony… They know, how inter-dependent our lives are… How it is just not possible for us to live on our private islands. In other words, they know, that it’s never a civilized way of living when we provoke, hurt and anger our fellow-beings…

Still, some of our friends do it! Pitiable sight is this: These folks include literate and illiterate both – rich and poor, high-society and low-society – These folks may come from anywhere…

 



The God and the saints who I worship, and the political party and their leaders who I follow, are my private affairs. Accordingly, I should have the basic civic sense not to trumpet about them – and demean others’ – from the public squares… The social platforms are the modern public-squares… the Nakas!

I wonder why some of us are tempted to do decry others’ religious or political ideologies in public. Are we so naïve – or stupid – to think, that, by doing so, we can win friends and influence people? Dale Carnegie had long warned:

“A man convinced against his will

is of the same opinion, still.”

I would go a step further and warn: “You are about to stir up a hornet’s nest!”




If he were to write a parody to his cult-classic, the original guru of self-improvement and human relationship would, most certainly, title it as: ‘How to Influence People and Lose Friends’!

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: pixabay

 

Video: MovieCon Animation

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