“Perception
is reality”, my friend said it again. She says it a lot. She is not the only one endorsed to that thought. When leaders
with strong following accept this statement, then majority starts to see perception as
reality. The problem I see with this thinking is simple. Perception is Not
Reality. Perception is deceptive. One key job of leaders in any organization is
to ensure that perceptions are not accepted as reality. Otherwise, it can be
damaging for the teams.
We all
have heard about the elephant and blind men story and know how accepting
perception as reality is akin to being blind.
Today I
am here to share another folk tale from India on the subject.
There once
was a village woman longing to become a mother. One day she met a saint who could
read her mind. The saint told her that she needs to start caring for someone
unconditionally to be blessed with motherhood. Look for opportunities to
provide unconditional caring.
Few
days she stayed lost in that thought but could not see any signs. Then one
night it rained a lot, next morning she stepped towards her wheat fields and
found a tiny baby mongoose, drenched in mud and struggling. His family must
have been washed in the flash floods of last night. She felt immense sorrow for
the helpless creature and caringly picked it from mud. She cleaned it and fed
it. She brought it home to care for, till it develops strength enough. But
soon the mongoose started following her as her own child and became a part of
the family.
Mongoose
is a dangerous animal, her friend said, but she loved the thing so much that
she will not accept any of such fears.
With
time as her motherly love for the mongoose grew, as the saint has prophesied,
she was blessed with a child. She gave birth to a beautiful and healthy boy. Her
house was filled with joy. She did see the mongoose as the angel, who was given
to her to exercise unconditional care to be blessed as a mom. The joy in the
house was through the roof. She will play with the mongoose running around,
while the baby will giggle seeing them play.
Her friend was even more
skeptical now, and continuously asking her to abandon the mongoose, before the
wild animal harms the little baby. But she loved the mongoose so much that she
will never listen.
One day when the baby
was lying down in the back courtyard, and the mongoose playing around him, she
heard a knock on the main door. She ran to answer, it was the same friend who
has warned about the mongoose so many times. She had come asking for some herbs
to make an organic concoction to soothe her itchy throat. The mother went to
kitchen to fetch the herbs. While she returned at the main door with the herbs,
they both heard loud grunt of mongoose and a sharp cry of the baby. She got
worried as the friend screamed, “seems your mongoose has attacked your child”
They both ran to the courtyard, and right before the threshold there was the
mongoose smeared in blood, seemed that he has just hunted. “Oh God, he killed
your child” the neighbor cried. The mom had heard this so
She ran into the
courtyard and saw that her baby was alive and well and giggling, while there
was a venomous cobra lying dead a few feet away, killed by sharp teeth and paws
of the mongoose. So, the blood on the mongoose was not her child’s, it was the
cobra’s. The mongoose did not kill her son but saved her son from being killed.
She had lost her angel, her blessing that had given her so much joy for many
months. The one who taught her to care unconditionally. The one whom she had
saved and loved like a mother. She had killed him because of the perception,
the perception that was built based on the constant suggestion from her
neighbor that the mongoose will harm her son.
It was too late; the
dead mongoose cannot be brought back to life. The reality was very different
from the perception. Perception was never reality.
Epilogue Mongoose
Story: The child was still small
and mother still busy. The neighbor never showed her face. Monsoon season was
approaching and that is when, in village like this, the snakes can come to courtyards.
The risk was real. The one who could stand between the snake and the child,
that mongoose was dead. That was reality.
Epilogue Blog: My friend now knows that when you are in a
significant position in any team or organization, you always have a responsibility
to intentionally disperse the cloud of perception so that reality is visible to
all. Afterall, however real it may appear, still perception is not reality.
Note: And my twist to Elephant and blind men story below -
https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold.html
https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold_15.html
https://nuancesofbeing.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-elephant-and-blind-men-fable-retold_18.html
.JPG)
