Perspective & Paradigm Shift and a touch of humour

 

Some of you would remember the 'paradigm shift' story about a man in the train being troubled by the kids of another man who is doing nothing to discipline them. The man (being disturbed) is irritated and thinking ill about the father (irresponsible, unconcerned, no civic sense, no common sense, bad father and so on ). When this man comes to know that the 'father and kids' have just lost their mother and they are probably returning from the last rites; his outlook suddenly changes. His feelings and thoughts about this person take a u-turn and he is filled with compassion and not anger/irritation.

We might have experienced something similar in our lives. Think about it.

Another thing is our perspective that stems out of our way of life or often by our career and job profile. A housewife, a software engineer and a saree shop owner … all watching a typical daily soap on TV … each of them will see the same thing BUT notice a different thing … the housewife will notice the jewellery of the actresses, the software engineer will comment on the computers shown in the serial never being connected / never having wires around and the saree shop owner sees nothing but sarees. It happens to us too. We begin to look and perceive the world as we do it in our jobs. A new lens, a new filter gets added to our already clouded perceptions.  

Here is a small parable which brings in the aspect of the 'paradigm shift' as well as 'perspective' with a touch of humour !

A clergyman, a doctor and a business consultant were playing golf together one day and were waiting for a particularly slow group ahead. The business consultant exclaimed, "What's with these people? We've been waiting over half and hour! It's a complete disgrace."

The doctor agreed, "They're hopeless, I've never seen such a rabble on a golf course." The clergyman spotted the approaching greenkeeper and asked him what was going on, "What's happening with that group ahead of us? They're surely too slow and useless to be playing, aren't they?"

The greenkeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The three golfers fell silent for a moment.

The clergyman said, "Oh dear, that's so sad. I shall say some special prayers for them tonight."

The doctor added, rather meekly, "That's a good thought. I'll get in touch with an ophthalmic surgeon friend of mine to see if there's anything that can be done for them."

After pondering the situation for a few seconds, the business consultant turned to the greenkeeper and asked,

"Why can't they play at night?"