Living in harmony is life’s most noble beauty; likened to the most vibrant flowers.
-    Mr. Ikeda

Regardless of whether in school or in our organization, all groups comprise of people. As long as there are people, there will certainly be arguments and gossips. Hence, living in harmony is very important. ‘If there is no unity, even the best principles or line of approach can never be efficiently implemented.’  These are the words of the Democratic Republic of North Korea’s father of independence, Ahn Chang-ho. Everyone is different and each of us are endowed with distinct personalities. In our interaction with others, there are undeniably a large number of egocentric people. They often portray themselves as: one who forces others to do things which they don’t want to, insensitive to people’s feelings, unable to accept others ideas or opinions, autocratic type of person.

Say for example: There is someone in our class who never listens to our opinions when organizing activities. Even though she eventually became the chairperson of our organization, she still didn’t gain favourable impression from her classmates but instead her classmates’ opinions on her arise one after another. A self-centered person looks down upon others and likes to order people around and expects everyone to listen to their opinions thinking that they are always right. 
To get along well with others, one must respect other people’s opinions and avoid forcing people to do things against their will. As an old saying goes: ‘Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you’ which also means do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. Similarly, in situations where there are things we liked, we shouldn’t strongly impose it on others and expect them to do the same. Here, strongly imposing has no respect on others opinions, being forceful, it carries the hint of reluctance.    

We must know that everyone is brought up in different backgrounds, different personalities and everyone’s view on things also differs. Perhaps the things you agree with may be things which others oppose or the things you liked happen to be things people hated. Thus, if you keep on insisting people to agree with your point of view, they will undeniably feel unhappy.

Subsequently, to be able to listen to other people’s opinion and stop being self-centred, we must stop being over-assertive. People who are egocentric are always those who are stubborn, bossy and don’t want to listen and accept other people’s opinions. Once they formed their own views or made a decision, they will strictly stick to it.

This not only results in others not able to harmoniously get along with them, they may even be unable to realize their mistakes and shortcomings. They are unpopular because they don’t want to listen to other people’s opinions, only wanting to show off and stand out among others, not giving others a chance to express themselves. How could such an arbitrary person win the acceptance of her fellow classmates?

We should lower our stance and not look down on others. I believe everyone likes to get along with a person who is modest and humble and hates to be with people who are arrogant and likes to order people around. Students who are arrogant always look down their nose at everybody, feeling superior to others and take advantage of their power to carry out their tasks. And for that reason, she didn’t develop good relationship with others and is unpopular among her fellow classmates. When we interact with our classmates, we should lower our stance and maintain ourselves on the same level with our classmates.

Everyone desires to express themselves and be known, everyone wishes to be acknowledged and respected. To do so, we should reflect on ourselves in our interactions with others, respecting others, not being forceful, not looking down on others and willingly listen to other people’s opinion and be considerate. By doing so, we can walk out of the loophole of egoism and enable ourselves to become a person well liked by everyone.

Labels: e. Words of mentor