Wednesday, November 5, 2008

being professional... yaah... boo !! being practical... yeah right.. :D

I am surrounded by professional and practical people a lot.. I do not call them that, it is by their own definition of their actions that this comment is made. so I tend to wonder a lot why of why on earth are these people like this and where have the real people gone off to ?.. I do not hate them, criticise their way of life or hold any sort of grudge against them. But I see where they are going and I see how much it is going to hurt some of them. Especially the converts to this fold.. and my heart bleeds. I am not saying that not being these two things should nessecarily be equated to being ireresponsible. I am assuming that the person in question has the basic nature to accept all his or her responsibilites and work on them.
So this is my argument over some of these peoples professed ways to practice...
For a long time I thought that being professional would depend on what profession one is professing.... You know a baker might 'flare up' from time to time, or a doctor might be 'sick of it all'. But sadly that is not so. There is a category of behaviour that I have heard being classified as 'being professional'. Listed below are some of the characters expected from me to be professional and in quotes are my honest to existence questions to them..
Irritating (to me ) things like :
1. Having a proper 'sense' of dress ( am not talking of cleanliness here only 'sense' of dress please make no mistake).. " Now if I would be working my best and what I say and do does not depend on what and whether I wear anything, why the hell should the dress matter ? "
2. Having a proper 'sense' of where to show emotion and where not to show emotion... " This works only for a politician and NOT for anyone else, so if you mean to do it otherwise you are doing what politicians do... dupe yourself and people"
3. 'Being professional' towards only certain people... " this is my favourite hit.. if you want to be professional then please do so towards all the people in your profession and not only the people you want to avoid in your life "
4. Having a 'sense' of behaviour.. ( again am not against the basic tenets of decency and humanity ) " What the hell do you mean by this ? how can anyone else have a sense of behaviour that you have ?" Examples of when to be our self and when not to come to mind, especially dependent on whether the boss or people you don't like are there.
5. Talking only about professional things when you know you can have so much fun by talking about other creative things as well ... " Welll.. if you are so scared of me intruding into your boundary that you limit yourself access to whatever interesting ideas I have to offer about whatever.. then there is only one word for you... COWARD he he he. Creating shields around you so that sooo many people don't get through.. how the hell can one live like that ? I would die of asphyxiation"
so if you are being professional like mentioned above.. I would gladly make a fool out of myself and say yeah.. boo !!!

And now the most trusted defense of professional and practical people... being practical itself !!!
I always wondered.. isn't being practical dependent on what you are going to or already practicing ?
This includes the following things...
1. Giving importance to people based on their use to you... ( this is most of the times done involuntarily by people ) .. " this is such a waste of time.. because then you have spend your energy into evaluating how much use someone is or will be and this turns out to be a continuous process. why not assume everyone is important and go ahead to do your work ? Examples of giving importance to an idiotic boss because they are the boss or to other people like yourself because they are predictable and will not cause you harm, come to mind.."
2. Changing your outlook depending on how much acceptance of the aforesaid useful people will it achieve... " again.. why ?? just be open enough to get acceptance anywhere.. why waste time in doing this nonsense ? Anyway if you are among people who are equally practical and professional it should not matter right ? I think all this boils down to covering one's vulnerability or tweaking gain out of every situation. both of which are logically correct but rationally silly things to do in life."
3. The last and the best... telling non-practical people to be practical.. or trying to take advantage of their 'impracticality' " Please leave people be. you think you are helping them become happier and achieve things. Please understand very clearly you are NOT !! you are stifling them, you are stripping them of their emotions and their capacity to think straight, By telling them to focus on things like their 'career' or their 'work' at the cost of everything else.. you are dehumanising them. You have destroyed your own life.. now don't take theirs to make you feel better that more people are in the same boat, so you have that many less people to analyse real time for your first two tenets."
It is a fact that when confronted about point number 3 practical people get angry but being practical do not show this emotion and do something else instead. but the recent converts get very defensive and try to tell you that their choice is right for such profound things as 'life', 'living', 'happiness', 'satisfaction'. Yes it is true if all these things depended upon not being connected to anyone else in the world more than it is needed and therefore not being affected by the pain, happiness of others. I have never seen a more idiotic way of looking at life. I know the answer to their quandary but I am not going to write it here because who am I anyway ?
I used to imagine ostriches with their heads in the ground, but even they come up to breathe, these people will end up breathing their own stale breath and then they will maybe think if they have some semblance of sense that " yes that impractical, unprofessional fool is right, he might be poorer or less renowned, or less successful but man he is laughing like he has gone crazy... and i am not.. because i am not supposed to..""
Being practical... yeah right... :D

5 comments:

Mukta said...

i like :) i like :)
Had never found this subtle hint of humour in your earlier posts...
Basically, it all boils down to whether you live your life honestly...as you are and not wanting to be someone else...the supposed "ideal" someone else. The thing is, for a lot of people it takes time to grow into their own skins, and be confident of what they are. Blessed are those who have such confidence to begin with. See, if I really like myself, then I shall never have to pretend and try to 'be" practical or professional! nice post!

shilpa said...

Interesting..
My opinion is that'professionalism'/'practicality' are just words people use as excuses when they can no longer understand /explain why they do things the way they do!...Another irritating one is Maturity..I have gotten that one alot!Arghh..so annoying!!

Abhijit said...

wah wah farach sundar.....this is the best post from u ashwin...I liked it very much.keep it up...

Unknown said...

hmmm, its the way people behave most of the times!! even the so called 'matured'people do. they never grow up!!
u've written it really thoughtfully.....though its funny its true.

WildMagic said...

Being professional is being responsible and treating others with courtesy, consideration and respect. As simple as that. But these are such long forgotten concepts that people need to invent a new word for them and then, of course, others need to twist it into unacceptable parodies of the real meaning.

'Practical' and 'Professional' are inherently different, non-intersecting concepts. Its an indication of how perverted the word 'professional' has become, that you compare it to being 'practical'.

Keep the post. You wrote it because you felt it was worth writing..and its YOUR blog, isn't it? :)

Sagar

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just your regular guy who dreams too much. i read a lot don't remember it all though.. swim, trek, yoga.. think and read more.. that about sums it up..