Saturday, November 5, 2011

The silent majority......

"Many are called but a few are chosen". These words will be familiar  among the Christians as this phrase is commonly used in the preachingg sermons. It means that many people are called to Christianity but only a few are chosen as leaders. These leaders are the one who will speak out and lead the spread of Christianity. However, if we bring this context to our daily life, it means people who seek for perfection or the protection of their rights. If you rule a country, there are basic human rights and if you are running a company, you must  provide and protect the right of your customers. Otherwise, these chosen leaders have the right to speak up and "right the wrongs" which, if not  the silent majority would suffer in silence.

I am talking about an experience I have yesterday when I visited BIL J in the hospital. After his dialysis, he was very uncomfortable and in pain. The pain was coming from his cancer. He was eagerly wanting to go back to his room to rest and he was panting for  a wheel chair  to sent him to his room. We waited and waited and expressed our verbal request to the nurse in charged and she told us that they are waiting to hand him over to another nurse as this is the hospital's procedure. We waited for almost 20 minutes and the wheel chair was not coming.  So, I went to see the Administrative Staff at their counter to file a complaint and after about 5 minutes, the wheel chair came to take BIL J to his room. On departing, I make a comment to the nurse " if you decide to provide a service, you have to provide the service with an excellent attitude and go all out to serve the customers" . The nurse apologized for their operating system's failure.  If I have not put my foot down, we would be part of the silent majority queuing up innocently and suffer in pain.

However, my action was rebuked by my wife who told that I am creating a lot of noise.  Well, I was not agreeable to her comments. A lot of people do not like to speak up for fear of embarrassing themselves and to criticize people is not a norm in our Chinese culture and in many culture. We have to be polite and wait for our turn. This is a nonsense thinking and  because of this silent majority, inefficiencies have prevail and improvement is retarded.  People can get a way with a simple " I am sorry"  excuse  from inefficiencies or mistakes.  I don't think so because these inefficiencies will affect the service of the hospitals and will continue to impact more and more people coming for treatment. We have to complain for improvements.

There are a lot of other things in life which needs tidying up and make the world a better place. Stop hurting other people's feeling is the least of the concerns as " rots of the fish starts from the infected parts" and in most cases , starts from the head.  I am modifying this phrase to suit the occasion. I believe and encourage " positive feed backs" and let the people who have committed the errors to sit up and tidy up their acts and "save the people".  This comment is also applying to the people running the politics of a country and even more so, they owe this responsibility to the people and the Nation to be efficient.

I  am not a hero or want to act as one but there are so many imperfections which affects our daily life which we have to suffer in silence. In Buddhism, we are taught to have understanding and be patience and  learn to tolerate imperfections in world by improving our inner self and mind. as this will bring peace. I would like to agree to disagree to a point and in a different perspective, we should practice pro-active Buddhism to reduce imperfections as to provide an effort to reduce sufferings in this world. The people who is sick is suffering in pain and by such imperfections, they suffer more pain and discomforts. If we look in this perspective, we should encourage improvements in the hospital operating procedures.

I was disturb by people lacking loving kindness and compassion in this world and treating their job as a job and nothing more. We should cross the fine line of our job area if there  is a need and to ratify it if the outcome is giving suffering to other  people. Have loving kindness and compassion in our heart and in our effort and it won't he wrong. Our complaint may hurt some people but it will bring benefits to may other people in the future. It is actually a merit or good karma to act in this positive manner. If we look at it in another perspective, it is actually a waste because any delay leads to waste ie wasting of the other people's time and energy and it is a sin to waste.

Please live and live positively and act in good faith to bring more constructive feedback to this world in order to reduce sufferings in our daily life.

Namaste.

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