Prabhakar Karve's weblog

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

From time to time, we read / hear quotes or sayings which sometimes are amusing and other times could be even boring. Unless we experience their real effect on us, they come and go without much impact on us. To illustrate let me share an incident that occurred a few days back.

In the stream of mails that we keep receiving I noticed one particularly because it irritated me. As all of us do, he had forwarded a long conversation thread of which so far I was not part of with just an ‘fyi’, which is a commonly used short form of “for your information”. I was in the middle of a busy day with lot of things yet to be completed for the day and I had to dig deeper in the mail thread, spending a few precious minutes to figure out what was the information he wanted me to have.

Later in the day when majority of the chores were done and behind me now, I could think of the incidence more peacefully. It suddenly hit me that I have been doing the same thing to others without thinking about the recipient, how much information he already possessed and what additional information I want to provide him with. There was a moment of guilt quickly followed by the need to change my practice. From that day, I am careful to consider whether just ‘fyi’ is adequate or I can help the other person by pointing out what additional information I am trying to share. I presume and hope that it is helping others. But in any case, I feel good that I am caring for others’ need and acting on it.

Whoever said “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” had a point which I realized only after experiencing it myself. Do you find it happens in your case too?