Good Job! Great work! That was magnificent! I like your style!
You made a mistake. What is this rubbish? That’s awful. I hate it when you do that.
Now go on. Tell me which one of these two lines do you prefer? Unless you’re mentally disturbed, you’ll definitely go for the first one. That’s the magic of positive reinforcement. The thing about Asians is, we’ve been conditioned by a culture that prefers not to practice it.
We’re used to hearing about how badly we messed up, since we were little kids. It’s always something like “Ali! Kenapa ujian Sains dapat B?” or “Chong! Bila nak kemas bilik?Macam kena puting beliung je ni!” or “Rajen!Kenapa rambut macam budak samseng?”
Then as we grow older it continues, albeit in a different environment. “Ali! This report is rubbish, I don’t understand a single word!”
“Chong! You missed your deadline. You’re so incompetent! “
“Rajen! That’s the worst presentation I’ve ever seen!”
You see, put downs and criticisms flow through the Asian tongue like water flows through a river. It’s so natural. Almost like combing your hair. But when it comes to giving praise, there’s always a cat that comes out of nowhere and gets their tongue. Darn cat. Shouldn’t it be dead because of its curiousity or something?
Anyway, the reason we're always so quick to berate someone is at some point of our lives we were at the receiving end, and compliments were considered an unnecessary luxury. Therefore when a person actually deserves praise, we hold back because we're so used to dishing out negative comments, the positive ones have literally 'dried up' from our mental vocabulary.
Hence, let's not let that happen and we can start by complimenting someone today. Find something good about the person, and say it like you mean it!
Here’s to a positive 2013!
James M. Barrie
No comments:
Post a Comment