Behaviours and skills are picked up from one’s home and surroundings, on reflections from the years unknown. Schools actively add to that in a structured manner. In the course, boundaries are set consciously and subconsciously about expectations from others and on our self-benchmarked delivery. In every relation across personal, social and professional, we are expected to maintain boundaries optimally at every moment. 

But my emphasis would be on, do we set the Boundaries (1st B) considering the other party an equal?  Equal in emotion, considering everyone equally humane, irrespective of relational position, multiple intelligence, financial status, professional hierarchy?? If not, isn’t it time to introspect and ACT as one? My observation is that a lot of people stand by the “my way or highway” attitude and the trait is seen across generations including generation X, Y, Z , many a times people exploiting the position, relation, situation and so on. The rules are very different for what you expect from others and how you reciprocate in terms of protocols, manners, and vibes.  If you have not experienced this, then lucky you. I am talking about self-aware people in action, not in arguments and panel discussions!! 

If I start on Bias (2nd B), a whole lot of things like religious bias, gender bias, ethnicity bias, generational bias….. would crop up. Even when a lot of generation Z claims to be atheists, we are still biased at a huge level when it comes to religion and hence at large in society. I am aware that there are volumes of information available on this. Why not talk about individual bias?  We all have it, in the name of solidarity, friendship, community for the sake of privileges, benefits, short-cuts for survival and what not. I have a small story to share here. I was in Mussoorie during a weekend adventure out of a six-week long HCL induction program, based out of HRL guest house at Dehradun back in 1986. Some of us trekked all the way to Mussoorie and met few foreign research students in a cafe.  We took the initiative to take them along, while singing ‘Rin Tin Tin ..swallowed a pin…’ on the road and chit-chatting. They asked us about our discipline of studies and I said ‘ Physics’. Pat came the reaction ‘ you don’t look like one!’. WOW!  I was not extremely surprised as I had received comments like, ‘this is not a fashion parade’ for wearing an ankle high skirt and a top’ in college. But the latter comment was from a guy brought up in Kolkata, India and the former comment was from a North American doing research in History. This is just an example of personal BIAS. 

Do we really strike Balance (3rd B) or Harmony, or Happiness with lot of biases and imbalanced two-way boundaries? Momentary balance can be achieved which is disturbed at the drop of the hat. Paraphrasing Dalai Lama, explaining that nothing exists as it appears, to go one layer deeper and see why it is appearing so. The understanding and reaction will be better.  What I am trying to say is that, introspection of our actions is mandatory and we all must spend more time doing this than using the shortcut of throwing others under the bus.  

I am curious to know your take on the connection of  these Three Bs.. 

Cancun…..17/07/2021