One of the disadvantages of being the head of the Family is the task of offering Advice.
Some times your advice may not be needed on an issue.
One does not know whether the information conveyed to you is for information, advice or for approval.
Some times it is for information.
In such cases if you offer advice, it is plain ignored , or worse you are told it is not required.
On that score if you keep quiet on other occasions, you are told that you are not involved.
You have a Hobson’s’ Choice.
In either case, you will be blamed.
It is safe, in the interest of the family, offer Advice with no great hope of being paid heed to.
In this case,if people do follow it is good; if not’ you do not get hurt because you did not expect to be heard.
Another scenario is expressing one’s feelings.
It is recommended that you express your feelings to others.
It so happens that I am brought up in an environment where not much of expression of emotion was encouraged and the examples were set my Father and other menfolk.
My father was of such a disposition, that when his father died, the body was in laid out in the Hall of the house in the Hindu manner, and there was my father reclining , apparently non nonchalantly in an armed chair rocking gently.
I was about 15 then.
I asked him as to why he did not cry for his father’s death.
He replied,
‘If some one can guarantee that my father will come back alive if I cry, I shall.
No amount of tears will bring him back.
So why cry?
On another occasion when my other was lying in bed seriously afflicted with Cancer, I was half asleep around by 100 am.
My father woke me up gently and told me,
‘Your Mother is dead, now go to sleep’
I was shocked.
it is a different matter that my father who was nearly 110 kgs came down to bout 70 kgs in a matter of six months after my mother’ death.
In another instance, when my father heard the news of my first wife’s death from me, he did not react; he stood numb and promptly lost his power of hearing.
Not that he did not feel, only that he did not find it necessary to express his anguish or feelings as, in his opinion, it is unnecessary.
For him , his feelings are best with in himself.
He did not seek other’s approval of his Love for others such out ward expressions.
Before his death he told me ,
‘Some times, I think it is necessary that you let the others know what you feel to make them feel good.
There is nothing wrong, now I realize.
Ensure that your emotions are genuine , not artificial .
True.
I am guilty of the same failing.
Well it is difficult to change at my age.
To be happy and make others happy, it is necessary to express one’s feelings.
And avoid thinking for them, including offering advice.
Now we seem to be doing the reverse,
Thinking for other,not expressing the feelings for them.
Better change it,
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